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n

The Author in the Bedouin Disguise in which
He Escaped from the Turks

SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

BY

Rev. JOSEPH NAAYEM, O. I

With a Preface by
LORD BRYCE

and

An Historical Essay by
Rev. GABRIEL OUSSANI, D.D,

Chaldean Rescue

253 Madison Avenue
New York, N. Y.

Copyright, 1921

BY

Rev. Joseph Naayem, O. I.

JUL -3 72

©CI.A681297

CONTENTS

Part I

Chapter Page

I. My Father's Death 1

II. My Escape 25

III. The Fate of Urfa 39

IV. My Prison Experiences 43

V. My Successor's Experience 113

Part II
Chapter

I. Depositions Concerning the Massacre at Sairt 121

II. Halata 145

III. Karima (aged 13) 163

IV. Stera and Warena 167

V. In the Desert 171

VI. The Massacre of Diarbekir 181

VII. In the Tents of the Bedouins 191

VIII. The Massacre of Lidja 199

IX. What Happened in Kharput 207

X. Rape, Loot, and Murder 217

Part III
Chapter

I. In Hakkiari and Persia 261

III. The Experience of the Right Reverend

Petros Aziz, Bishop of Salmas" 303

ILLUSTRATIONS

Page

The Author Disguised as a Bedouin Frontispiece

The Author's Father 22

The Prison Camp 44

Mazloum Bey 53

The Patriarch of Babylon 121

Djalila 131

Wadi Wawela 139

Halata 145

The Archbishop of Sairt 158

The Archbishop's Secretary 162

Karima 163

Stera and Warina 167

Hunting for Gold 172

The Archbishop of Diarbekir 181

Rafts on the Tigris 187

Michael and His Brother 191

Eyewitnesses 199

The Archbishop of Jezire 207

Habiba 254

Mar Shimoun 261

The Rev. Lazare Georges 267

The Bishop of Salmas 303

The Bishop of Urmia 308

Map of Mesopotamia '. 318

PREFACE

BY

Lord Bryce

The bloodstained annals of the East contain no
record of massacres more unprovoked, more wide-
spread or more terrible than those perpetrated by the
Turkish Government upon the Christians of Anatolia
and Armenia in 1915. It was the sufferings of the
Armenians that chiefly drew the attention of Britain
and America because they were the most numerous
among the ecclesiastical bodies, and the slaughter
was, therefore, on a larger scale. But the minor com-
munities, such as the Nestorian and Assyro-Chaldean
churches, were equally the victims of the plan for
exterminating Christianity, root and branch,, although
the Turks had never ventured to allege that these
communities had given any ground of offense. An
account of these massacres, organized and carried out
with every circumstance of cruelty by Enver and
Talaat, chiefs of the ruffianly gang who were then in

xii SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

power in Constantinople, has been given in the Blue
Book, published by the British Foreign Office in 1916,
and entitled " Treatment of the Armenians in the Otto-
man Empire." In the present volume there is pre-
sented a graphic and moving narrative of similar cruelties
perpetrated upon members of the Assyro-Chaldean
Church in which about half of them, men, women
and children, perished at the hands of Turkish mur-
derers and robbers. The narrative is written by the
Rev. Father Naayem, who saw these horrors with
his own eyes and narrowly escaped with his life. He
has recounted to me and to other friends of his people
in England the terrible story, and we have encouraged
him to believe that his English translation of his book
will be read with sympathy and pity both here and in
the United States. I venture to recommend it to those
who wish to know what these innocent victims have
suffered, trusting that it may do something to sustain
that interest in the sorely afflicted Christian Churches
of the East,, which has been manifested in both coun-
tries, and hoping also that the charitable aid so gen-
erously extended to them in their calamities may be

PREFACE Xlll

continued. The need of relief is still very great and it
is for their Christian faith, to which they have clung
during centuries of oppression and misery, that they
have now again had to suffer.
22>rd July, 1920.

AN HISTORICAL ESSAY

ON THE

ASSYRO-CHALDEAN CHRISTIANS

BY

Rev. Gabriel Oussani, D. D.

The Rev. J. Naayem, the author of this work, and
an eye-witness of most of the horrible scenes of
massacre herein described, has requested me to write
an introduction to this English version of his book
for the benefit of the American public, which is per-
haps not so well acquainted with the history, geog-
raphy and religion of the Assyro-Chaldean Christians
who suffered during and after the great war (1915-1920)
at the hands of the unscrupulous Turks, indescribable
tortures, and who lost through murder and famine
250,000 of their membership.

Having the interest and the welfare of this unfor-
tunate nation at heart, being myself a native of that
unhappy land, and having already known of these

XVI SHALL THIS NATION DIET

things through direct correspondence with bishops,
priests, merchants, friends and relatives in Mesopotamia,
I gladly accede to his request, hopeful of awakening in
the loving hearts of the American people a genuine sym-
pathy and commiseration for this martyred race, one of
the most ancient and glorious nations; but, alas, deci-
mated and reduced to ruin.

Never in the past have the American people had
such an opportunity of extending a helping hand to
oppressed Christian nations as they have at the
present time in Upper Mesopotamia.

The sufferings of the Belgian, French, Polish, Ser-
bian and Austrian peoples during the great war com-
pletely fade away by comparison with what the help-
less countries of the Near East suffered and endured,
and are still enduring, from Turkish and Kurdish
ravages and cruelties.

The excellent work done by the Near East Relief
Committee has accomplished much; but a great deal
more must be done, and done quickly, if the Christi-
anity of the Near East, and especially of Mesopotamia
and Persia, is to be rescued from immediate and total
destruction. The well-merited relief so generously

AN HISTORICAL ESSAY XVll

extended to the suffering Armenians has in a way so
completely focused the attention and the generosity
of the American people on this unfortunate race, that
the other, — smaller, but just as unfortunate, — races
of the Near East have been to a great extent lost sight
of. These smaller Christian nations, and particularly
the Assyro-Chaldeans, suffered as much at the hands
of the Turks as the Armenians, and proportionately
more, and thus deserve as much sympathy and help.

Ethnographically, the modern Assyro-Chaldeans are
the descendants of the Ancient Babylonians, Assy-
rians and Arameans, who for many millenniums
inhabited and ruled over the Tigris-Euphrates valley,
Upper Mesopotamia and Syria, and who were the
political masters of the Near East for many centuries
before the Christian era.

With the downfall of the Kingdoms of Assyria and
Babylonia (7th and 6th centuries B. C, respectively)
and the political ascendency of the Medians, Parthians,
and Persians (from circa 6th century B. C. to 6th cen-
tury A. D. especially during the reign of the Sassa-
nide dynasty), they suffered many political and later on
religious persecutions, but stood the test heroically.

XVlll SHALL THIS NATION DIET

Incidentally, their very ethnographic identity and
their national spirit of independence were completely
crushed. They were, so to say, engulfed in the many
religious, racial and political whirlpools and currents
which swept over their country for more than ten full
centuries.

Under the Arab domination (from the 7th to the
13th century A. D.) they once more prospered, and
developed the greatest and most extensive Christian
Church of the Near East, enjoying vast political and
religious privileges, marred at times by occasional and
local adversities. From the 13th century on and until
our own day, however, this heroic Christian nation
suffered such untold misery and persecutions at the
hands of the cruel Tartars, Moguls and Mohammedan
Turks that at the beginning of the 20th century this
once great and fertile country, this glorious and power-
ful nation, was reduced to less than one-tenth of its
former size.

The Assyro-Chaldean nation embraced Christianity,
if not during the first, certainly during the middle of
the second century. Setting aside the controversy as
to the early evangelization of Edessa in Upper Meso-

AN HISTORICAL ESSAY XIX

potamia during the reign of King Abgar (circa 35
A. D.) and the traditional propagation of the Gospel
throughout Mesopotamia by the Apostles Thomas,
Addai and Mari, it is unanimously agreed by all
scholars that towards the end of the second century
the Christian religion had penetrated into the whole
country inhabited by the Assyro-Chaldeans. In the
third and fourth centuries, they already possessed a
highly developed and well organized hierarchy, with
numerous dioceses and churches, a Patriarchal See,
stationed at Seleucia-Ctesiphon on the lower Tigris
and a Christian population exercising, at times, a far-
reaching political and religious influence over the Sas-
sanian dynasty of Persia and the Arabian dynasty of
Hira. During the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries, the
Assyro-Chaldean Church became so extensive and
powerful that it excited the fear and the hatred of the
Sassanian kings of Persia, who determined to exter-
minate it with a series of almost uninterrupted perse-
cutions and unheard-of cruelties. Hundreds of thou-
sands of martyrs gave their lives willingly for the faith
of Christ. Patriarchs, bishops, priests, virgins, widows,
children and adults, noble and poor, vied one with the

XX SHALL THIS NATION DIE f

other in their faith and love for Christ, and were mas-
sacred with tortures the Hke of which was not even
dreamed of by the most cruel of Roman emperors. And
if the number of martyrs in the Roman Empire during
the first three or four centuries, according to a generous
estimate, may have reached the grand totalof 200,000,
that of the Assyro-Chaldean martyrs in the Persian Em-
pire, from the 3rd to the 7th century, must have reached
the half million mark and perhaps twice that number.
Entire cities and whole districts were destroyed and their
Christian inhabitants slaughtered.

Monasticism also penetrated and flourished early
among the Assyro-Chaldean Christians. The mountains
of Assyria and Kurdistan teemed with hundreds of
their monastic institutions, and their inmates equalled
and often surpassed the most austere and absurd
asceticism of the early Egyptian and Syrian monks
and anchorites. Great schools of theology and phi-
losophy also flourished within this great Church, and
it is a well known fact that Arabian philosophy, math-
ematics, medicine, the arts and the sciences of the Middle
Ages, though to a great extent of Greek origin, pene-
trated the Abbaside Empire through the influence of

AN HISTORICAL ESSAY XXI

the numerous Nestorian and Jacobite scholars and
schools of learning; and thus preserved Western culture
from utter destruction and made possible its reintroduc-
tion into Europe through Spain at the hands of the
Mohammedan Arabs.

Up to about the middle of the 5th Christian century,
the Assyro-Chaldean Christians professed the same or-
thodox Christian Faith. In 429, Nestorius, a native of
Syria and Patriarch of Constantinople, began to preach
his doctrine that in Christ there v^ere two distinct
persons (the human and the divine) just as there v^ere
in Him two distinct corresponding natures, and thus
denying the Divine Maternity of the Virgin Mary.
Condemned by the Council of Ephesus (431) and repu-
diated by the whole Church of the West, and finding
no outlet for his doctrine in the Roman Empire, Nes-
torius, or rather his Syrian followers and admirers,
bishops, priests and monks, found in Mesopotamia
and Persia a fertile field for their teaching. Aided by
the Sassanian kings of Persia, the inveterate enemies
of the Roman Empire and of Western Christianity,
they succeeded in propagating Nestorianism through-
out the length and breadth of the Persian Empire,

XXll SHALL THIS NATION DIET

with the result that within a few decades the vast and
powerful Christian Church of Persia embraced the
Nestorian doctrine and thus separated itself from
the Christianity of the West, becoming an autonomous
church.

Hardly had this been accomplished when a new
christological heresy appeared on the horizon, — that
of Eutyches, another Syrian monk, and Abbot of Con-
stantinople. In his opposition to Nestorianism, Euty-
ches ended by propounding the opposite theory to
Nestorius, by maintaining that as in Christ there was
but one Person, so also His two natures became so
thoroughly united or admixed as to form but one com-
posite nature. He was deposed and his doctrine con-
demned by the Councils of Constantinople (448) and
of Chalcedon (451).

Finding again no outlet in the West, this new
teaching began to spread in Syria, Egypt, Armenia,
Mesopotamia and throughout the Persian Empire,
rivaling in its rapid spread Nestorianism itself; with
the result that throughout all the following centuries
and till our own days, Assyro-Chaldean Christianity,
which in the 10th and 11th centuries boasted of

AN HISTORICAL ESSAY XXIU

not less than five hundred dioceses, thousands of
churches and millions of adherents, reaching in its
extension from Central Asia, China, Tartary, Mon-
golia, India (Malabar), Mesopotamia, Persia, Syria,
Cyprus and as far as Egypt, became divided into two
great rival Churches, viz., the Nestorian Church, and
the Eutychian or Jacobite Church.

From the 14th century, however, and as late as
our own day, missionaries from religious orders of
the Roman Catholic Church centered their activities
on converting these people, with the result that ever
since, and for the last six centuries hundreds of
thousands of these Assyro-Chaldean Nestorians and
Jacobites entered the Roman Catholic Church, pre-
serving, however, their own national and ecclesiastical
language, liturgy, church discipline and customs. At
present, therefore, the Assyro-Chaldean Christians are
divided into four big sects or churches, with their
own corresponding hierarchy and distinct church
organization and government, differing but slightly
in their faith, in their liturgy and liturgical language
(rather dialects of the same language), church discipline
and ecclesiastical customs.

XXIV SHALL THIS NATION DIET

At the beginning of the great war, according to
more or less reliable statistics, the total number of the
Assyro-Chaldean Christians in Turkey and Persia
was about seven or eight hundred thousand, scattered
over the plains of Babylonia, Mesopotamia, Upper
Syria and the mountains of Assyria, Kurdistan and
Persia, whereas at the present time, having lost more
than 250,000 souls at the hands of the tyrannical
Turks, Kurds and Persians, they hardly number
500,000, many of whom had to abandon their country
and homes and flee into Russia, Syria and lower
Mesopotamia.

They are the following:

1. The Nestorian-Assyro-Chaldeans — commonly
called Nestorians.

2. The Catholic Assyro-Chaldeans — commonly
called Chaldeans.

3. The Eutychian Assyro-Chaldeans — commonly
called Jacobites.

4. The Syrian Catholic Assyro-Chaldeans — com-
monly called Catholic Syrians.

Numerically :

No. 1 before the war numbered circa 250,000.

AN HISTORICAL ESSAY XXV

No. 2 before the war numbered circa 150,000.

No. 3 before the war numbered circa 250,000.

No. 4 before the war numbered circa 50,000.

Owing to the staggering losses, it is almost impos-
sible to give accurate statistics of the Assyro-Chaldean
Christians at the present time. When the whole tale
of destruction is told and the condition of the coun-
try becomes normal (keeping in mind the horrible
slaughter of 250,000 souls, the total destruction of
the churches, the burning of thousands of homes, the
killing of a dozen or more bishops and hundreds of
priests, the plunder and spoliation of public, private
and church properties, the ravages of hunger, starva-
tion, violence, disease, poverty, deportation, tortures,
amputation and mutilation of thousands still alive and
rendered helpless and in a state of abject poverty,
ridicule and shame), then, and only then, will the
American people be enabled to form an adequate esti-
mate of the terrific losses in property and human life,
in domestic and personal happiness, in religion and
education among the unfortunate Assyro-Chaldean
Christians.

For this reason Father Naayem's book is of timely

XXVI SHALL THIS NATION DIET

interest, as it will give the American public an accu-
rate, though meagre pen picture of the horrible suf-
ferings of but a small portion of the Assyro-Chaldean
Christians.

America and American principles of justice and lib-
erty, American love for suffering humanity and
American charity are the only hope of stricken East-
ern Christianity, and the one bright star in the once
brilliant, but, alas, now darkened Eastern sky!

St. Joseph's Seminary,

Dunwoodie, N. Y.
Oct. \st, 1920.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

Several works have already appeared on the atroci-
ties and massacres perpetrated by the Turks in Arme-
nia, Asia-Minor and Syria. Eyewitness and victim
of these cruelties, I come in my turn to present my testi-
mony. It is my heartfelt wish to reveal to the public
yet one more prey of the Monster of Anatolia; — the
brute whose history is one of felony, pillage, destruction,
murder and massacre; — the beast whose life has been
prolonged by fifty years through the action of the Great
Powers to the ruin of the unhappy Christians, ground for
centuries beneath his heel. I desire to plead the cause of
a little people as deeply interested as it is abandoned;
a nation descended from a great Empire and from the
most ancient civilization known to history; a race
whose country, like that of Armenia, has been the
theatre of abominations practiced by the Turks, who
have assassinated its men and deported the women,
children and greybeards to be subjected to the worst
of outrages, and martyred with cold and cruel calcu-

XXVUl SHALL THIS NATION DIE T

lation. That little people is the Assyro-Chaldean
race.

In this work will be found :

My account of the massacre of the Christians in my
own district of Urfa, the ancient and celebrated city of
Mesopotamia.^ I recount the tragic fate of my father,
victim of Turkish hatred, and my own flight from Urfa.

In 1895-96, as a child of seven, I had witnessed, in
this same city of Urfa, the butchery of 5000 Christians,
whose throats were cut by their Turkish fellow-citi-
zens. On that occasion, thanks to some Arab mer-
chants, his faithful friends, my father had escaped the
massacre.

An account of my imprisonment and sufferings at the
hands of these human demons in the concentra-
tion camp of the Allied prisoners of war at Afion-
Kara-Hissar, to which I had been appointed Chaplain
by the Turkish Government at the request of the Holy
See.

The testimony of a German of sincerity, one of that
nation whose government is not itself altogether guiltless
of complicity in the tragedy.

* Better known perhaps in history by its former name, Edessa.

AUTHOR s PREFACE XXIX

Documents confided to my care and detailed narratives
given me personally by eye-witnesses or actual victims
of the persecution who survived, miraculously, their suf-
ferings.

Three hundred pages stained with human blood ! A
story full of horrors and degradation in which the
Turk reveals himself for what he is ; — a double-deal-
ing fanatical hater of the Christian.

I should like to quote a few lines from a letter writ-
ten to me on the 31st of May, 1919, by a Frenchman
who had passed more than three years among the
Turks as a prisoner of war:

"... I received your letter just at the moment
when you were giving your lecture, and was with you
in spirit as I thought of what you had to say as you
retraced the unheard-of suffering of the poor people
who, during the war, lay prone under the Turco-Ger-
man whip. But have you told everything? Did you
witness over there all the misery and sufferings of
those unhappy people? I saw them in camp on their
way through Kara-Pounar, a flock of miserable, bleed-
ing, starving, fever-riddled wretches, living skeletons
who had not even strength enough to dodge the

XXX SHALL THIS NATION DIE r

cudgels of their murderers. How I should have
applauded had I had the good fortune to be among
your audience and hear you show up those butchers'!

Would that I could bring to light the details of the
martyrdom of the Assyro-Chaldeans in the district of
Djezire on the Tigris and of Médiat, where over fifty
villages I know were completely sacked and ruined, all
the inhabitants being put to the sword : — a district which
was fertile and prosperous and looked forward to a
happy future, because of the fact that the Bagdad Rail-
way was about to run through their territory.

There is not the slightest doubt that not less than
n 250,000 Assyro-Chaldeans, perhaps rather more than
a third of the race, perished through Turkish fanati-
cism during the Great War, and immediately after the
signing of the Armistice.

During the occupation by the Allied Armies, in
June and July, 1919, two other Chaldean districts,
Amadia and Zakho, not far from Mosul, which until
that time had been preserved by the frenzied efforts
of the Patriarch of Babylon, were invaded by the
Kurds, who put the men to death, and, after pillaging

AUTHOR s PREFACE XXXI

and sacking everything, rode off with the women and
girls. A letter from the Patriarch, given me by his
Vicar General at Rome, Mgr. Paul David, and which
I published in the press, briefly relates the details of
this new horror.

To-day the situation of this little nation is indeed
precarious, surrounded as it is by a thousand fanatical
and hostile Arab and 'Kurd tribes, which are still
armed and seem contemptuous of the small Allied
forces sent to maintain order. At the first oppor-
tunity they will fall upon our unhappy countrymen
and exterminate the race.

In desperation we launch our appeal to the pity and
the justice of the Great Allied Powers, whose aim it is
to safeguard the rights of little nations, and we pray
that they will not delay in offering efficacious protec-
tion to this little Assyro-Chaldean people which for
centuries has groaned in slavery and oppression. Con-
fidently we hope and trust that they will assuage its
misery, mindful of its attachment to their cause, and
will at length restore to it its fatherland, its liberty
and its autonomous existence.

J. NAAYEM.

PART I

CHAPTER I

My Father's Death

At the commencement of the Spring of 1915, I was in
my parish at Urfa. The Great War was still in its
early stages. The Russians in the Caucasus were
advancing with great strides, and the Christians fol-
lowed their operations with great interest, for they
preferred Muscovite to Turkish rule.

One day, while I was paying him a visit. Bishop
Ardawart showed me a map, pointing out with great
satisfaction the progress of the Russians in their
march on Erzerum. This happened some days before
the arrest of the leading men of the town; and the
poor Bishop had no premonition whatever of the fate
awaiting him. Propaganda of Armenian treachery was
circulated. The faces of the Turks changed and be-
came more threatening. Photographs, purporting to
show Christians killing Turks, were passed from hand
to hand in the police stations, where they were shown
to the Turkish populace in order to excite their fanat-

L

2 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

icism. It was alleged that bombs and rifles were
found in Christian houses and churches.

In March, 1915, there began to arrive at Urfa, in
the most pitiable state, convoys of women, children
and old men who were being deported. The girls and
pretty women had been carried off while on the road,
and the men had been separated from them or killed.
To prolong the wanderings of the unfortunate people,
and to make them spend all they possessed, they were
compelled to halt several days at a time. This gave
the Moslem population sufflcient time to besiege the
convoy, and appropriate for nominal prices whatever
they wanted. At the same time, the soldiers and
police, who monopolized the trade with the convoys,
charged exorbitant sums for the provisions they had to
buy.

They did worse, for at night they scaled the walls
of the large yard in which the Christians were kept,
selected various women and girls and carried them
off across the flat roofs of the houses. After being
kept for some days as playthings, the wretched crea-
tures were then abandoned or massacred.

The yard where the convoys were taken soon be-

MY father's death 3

came infested with vermin, and rank with refuse, so
that for several months from ten to fifteen people died
every day. The bodies were piled on carts and taken
outside the town, and thrown into ditches. Those
who had the strength, wandered about the streets, ill
and in rags, reduced to begging their bread. When-
ever I went out, I met many of these poor people,
the sight of whom unnerved me, and I would hasten
home again, sick at heart, obliged to refuse alms, to
my intense mortification, to so great a number. Many
fell in the streets and died there of starvation, their
death-bed one of mud or dust.

Aye ! These eyes of mine have seen little children
thrown on manure heaps, while life still lingered in
their little bodies.

The Armenian Bishop, although assisted by the
members of his community, was unable to cope with
all this misery, for the convoys multiplied in number.
As soon as one had passed, after being pillaged and
ill-treated, another followed, and the same heart-rend-
ing scenes were repeated, again and again.

This state of things, far from touching the hearts of
the Turks, increased their fanatical hatred toward the

SHALL THIS NATION DIET

followers of Christ. In the bazaars, the cafesi, — every-
where,— one saw them whispering together, planning
foul surprises for the Christians.

Finally, several well-known persons were arrested,
and to force them to reveal the names of imaginary
Comitadjis^ and to reveal the places where they had
hidden arms, unmentionable tortures were inflicted
upon them.

This made me so apprehensive that I advised my
father to call upon the local head of the Committee of
Union and Progress, one Parmaksis Zade Sheikh Mus-
lim, who was acting mayor, and an associate of my
father's in business. To him my father confided his
intention of leaving for Aleppo with his family, but
Sheikh Muslim reassured my father, saying:

" Do not worry ; you have nothing to fear. In case
of danger I shall know how to get you away without
difficulty."

My father was comforted by his words, but I was
still very doubtful and anxious, for I knew to the
bottom the character of the unspeakable Turk.

* Members of secret organizations, here obviously for the
overthrow of the Turkish Government.

MY FATHERS DEATH 0

The continual passage of the convoys through the
town caused the Christians to live in a state of great
anxiety.

One day the Chief of Police called upon the Arme-
nian Bishop, and ordered him to summon his flock to
the Cathedral, as he wished to address them. The bell
was rung, and all the people ran to the Cathedral, fill-
ing it. Then the Turkish Commandant entered,
harangued the crowd, and in the name of the Govern-
ment ordered them to deliver up whatever arms they
possessed under pain of suffering the same fate as
those perishing in the convoys.

** If you obey," he added, '' not one of you will be
interfered with."

The Commandant with the Bishop then proceeded to
Garmush, a large village of five hundred Christian
families, situated about an hour and a half from the
town, where he repeated his harangue. Whereupon
the National Council assembled immediately at the
Bishop's residence and discussed the advisability of
surrendering weapons. Treachery on the part of the
Turkish Government was feared, and the Council was
divided in opinion. Bishop Ardawart, seeing danger

Ô SHALL THIS NATION DIE ^

imminent, implored his flock to yield their arms, in
order to appease the anger of the Turks.

" I am ready to sacrifice myself, if necessary," said
the prelate, kneeling before his flock in tears.

Touched by his words, his hearers decided unani-
mously to obey, and next day carts carried fro'm the
church to the Governor's house rifles, revolvers and
other arms vv^hich had belonged to the Armenians.
Unfortunately, a number retained their better
weapons.

Knowing the Christians to be disarmed, the Turks
began their foul work. First of all fifteen or twenty
prominent men were arrested and thrown into prison,
and their houses, that of the Bishop and the Cathedral,
were confiscated. All papers, books and registers
were taken to the Governor's house to be examined
minutely ; and corners of the Cathedral and the episco-
pal residence were dug up in search of arms. Gradu-
ally, all men of influence were arrested, imprisoned,
and subjected to long inquisitions, during which they
were flogged until blood was drawn.

Special envoys with full powers arrived at Urfa
from Constantinople to direct the tribunals, and were

MY FATHER S DEATH /

entertained as the guests of ex-deputy Mahmoud
Nedim, a bloodthirsty man, all powerful in the
province. Bishop Ardawart, himself, and several of
his priests were soon arrested and taken to prison.
Panic reigned among the Christian population.

As for the Moslem civilians, they markedly avoided
the society of the Christians, and held secret meetings
at night, their sinister looks showing that they were
hiding some tragic plan. If approached for help, they
answered that they could not mix themselves up in
these matters, and declared definitely that it was im-
possible for them to ofïer protection or shelter to a
Christian. Such action had been forbidden formally
by the Government. In fact, all Turks had been made
to swear in the Mosques on the Talak^ that they would
give no assistance to the Christians.

One evening a police agent, accompanied by several
soldiers, knocked at our door, and when we opened,
announced that he had come to search the house.

Three days before, two Armenian villagers had be-

2 A characteristic Turkish oath, by which the swearer pledges
to divorce his wife if it be proved that his statement be false,
or that he has broken his oath.

8 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

come our guests, since they were our employees and
helped in our transport of cereals. In Syria, and
especially in Lebanon, business was limited to trade in
foodstuffs, on account of the war. Urfa, being an
agricultural town, my father, among others, exported
cereals to Aleppo and to Lebanon. According to an old
custom, peculiar to this country, villagers in the employ
of merchants or farmers, when they come into town,
become their guests, and are lodged and fed by their
masters; in many houses, indeed, rooms being set
apart for this purpose.^

Not knowing what was happening in the provinces,
we had no suspicion of the danger we were running in
receiving these people into our house. Nor did our
guests tell us of what was going on in the country
from which they had come. Nevertheless, as a matter
of prudence, my father, before leaving for his ofifice
the day after their arrival, suggested to my mother
that she should advise them to seek lodgings else-
where. The poor villagers, unwilling to leave us,
remained yet another day, and made up their minds to

3 The very same custom prevails to-day in the wheat belt in
our Western States.

MY FATHER S DEATH ^

go only when my mother insisted. Next morning they
left, to return again in the evening and spend the night
with us, and had not left the house when the police
found them hiding in the corner of the kitchen.

It was not until later that we learnt that the vil-
lage where the poor people had lived — Hochine, a
dépendance of the Sandjak of Severek — had been
entered by soldiers and Kurds, who had massacred
nearly every inhabitant. A few men escaped to the
mountains, among them our two villagers, who later
came to us.

They were arrested, of course, and taken to prison.

My mother was alone in the house when my father
returned at seven in the evening, at which time a
policeman called and arrested him, on a charge of hav-
ing given refuge to two insurgents. It was even
alleged that he had relations with the enemy, and was
exporting cereals to them via Lebanon.

One of my brothers at once ran off to my father's
intimate friend, already mentioned, Sheikh Muslim,
the head of the Committee of Union and Progress,
gave him an account of what had occurred, and im-
plored him to intervene. Although the official reas-

10 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

sured him, my brother went to the Chief of PoHce,
likewise a friend of my father's, who a fortnight
before, in company with Sheikh MusHm, had accepted
our hospitality and spent the evening at our house.
The Commandant promised to release my father the
very next day, whereupon my brother returned at a
late hour and calmed the family.

Next day he went again to our Turkish friends, who,
this time, declared that we must have patience for two
or three days, since to liberate my father immediately
would only attract public attention, inasmuch as none
of the influential Armenians had been released. These
repeated promises led us astray and prevented us from
taking recourse to other and perhaps more practical
methods. Several days passed, fruitful of no more
than promises. Hadji Bekir Bey, father of Sheikh
Muslim, an octogenarian millionaire, who occupied
the position of Honorary Persian Consul, and who
held my father in great esteem, sent every day to
obtain news and begged his son to make every efïort
to save him.

A month passed, and the definite promises of the
earlier period became evasive. My father's friends,

MY father's death 11

now seeing themselves powerless to save him, ended
by declaring that it looked as if someone in high
authority was opposing his release. They would not
name the person whose interest it was to ruin my
father, although Sheikh Muslim admitted to us later
that it was no other than the ex-deputy, Mahmoud
Nedim, the terror of the countryside.

Six months before, Mahmoud Nedim had had a dif-
ference with my father, and became his enemy. This
man had a large property at Tel-Abiad, an important
station of the Bagdad Railway, forty kilometers from
Urfa, a point from which cereals are exported on a
large scale. Here, also, it happened that my father
kept on hand a large stock of empty grain sacks.

Nedim had harvested his crops and wished to send
them to Aleppo for sale, but was unable to procure
sacks, which had become rare and costly, owing to
requisitions by the Government. Knowing that my
father had some stored at the Railway Company's
depot, he went to the official in charge, unknown to
us, and asked for them, saying that my father had
taken his sacks under similar circumstances, they
being intimate friends. Either of his own free will,

12 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

or through fear of the consequences if he refused, the
storekeeper handed over several hundred sacks which
belonged to my father.

My father soon learnt of the loss of his sacks,
which did serious harm to his business, but in view of
the accomplished fact, he said nothing. Later he
requested payment for the sacks — a rather large sum
in itself. Nedim was deaf to the appeal. Several
months passed ! Eventually my father encountered
him at a meeting of the influential men of the town,
and, tired of waiting, asked him to settle the matter.
This his debtor considered a personal affront, and in
an insulting manner refused to pay. My father, out-
raged, expostulated indignantly, and left him.

Now, it was this iman, Mahmoud Nedim, who was
acting as host to the high officials sent from Constan-
tinople to take charge of the persecution at Urfa. It
was his influence with his powerful guests, which was
stultifying the efforts of my father's old Mohammedan
friends, Sheikh Muslim and the Chief of Police, to
secure his release.

Arrest followed arrest, and Sheik Safwet, a deputy

MY father's death 13

of the town, went to Diarbekir in the infamous rôle of
instigator of a D jehad.*

The Christians of Ourfa were terrified, as well they
might be, and in desperation and in the hope of saving
their men folk, the women cast themselves at the feet of
these officials and tried by every means in their power
to soften their hearts. The Tchettas patrolled the town
armed to the teeth, and watched the Christians with sin-
ister intent, pursuing those who tried to escape to the
mountains to join the deserters from the army.

As an example of the barbarity of these Tchettas
chiefs I will digress here for a moment to repeat an
incident that was related to me by Mr. Demarchi, con-
troller of the Ottoman Bank at Urfa, who is a friend
of mine. He was attending an open reception in the
Governor's official residence upon one occasion when
he saw one of these men in heated discussion with
the commandant of the city, an Arab from Damascus.
As he watched, he saw the Tchetta box the ears of the
commandant and then draw his revolver to shoot him.

Only the swift intervention of the Governor him-
self saved the soldier's life, and the weakness of the

* A religious or " holy " war.

14 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

Turkish Government is manifested by the fact that
instead of punishing the chief the Governor pacified him,
adopting the friendliest attitude towards him, as though
he himself were afraid of similar treatment ; though the
Turk continued to hurl insults upon him and all other
Arabs.

A commission charged w^ith the trial of those de-
tained in prison arrived at Urfa from Aleppo ; where-
upon we hastened to call upon the President of the
Court, and endeavored to gain his sympathy by every
means in our power. He told us that my father, being
innocent, would be released without delay, and he
repeated this to my mother when she, too, sent to him.

In the meantime many of the Armenians decided to
send a petition to the Governor, informing him that
they intended to embrace Mohammedanism, which
had no effect whatever upon the Turkish chiefs.

From the date of the arrival of these brigand chiefs
matters took a grave turn. No news came from the
outside. Letters, which had been sent to our cousins,
the Roumis, at Diarbekir, the sons of the former
dragoman of the French Consulate, were returned to
us, marked " Absent."

MY father's death 15

We learned later that the Roumis had been put on
a raft on the Tigris, with the first Diarbekir Convoy,
and had been murdered en route.

The manager of the Ottoman Bank of Diarbekir had
arrived in great haste some days before this. Utterly
panic-stricken, he would tell us nothing of what he had
seen. He had undergone many dangers on the road, and
remaining only for two days, during which time he was
concealed with Mr. Demarchi, he hastened to Aleppo.

One day a rumor was spread that a soldier had been
killed by a bullet fired by one of the Armenian refu-
gees who had taken to the mountains. Thereupon,
even greater hostility began to be shown to the
Christians. As the body of the soldier was being
taken through the streets, those who accompanied it
made fanatical demonstrations, and would have stoned
a priest whom they encountered had he not taken
refuge in the barracks. This was Father Wartan, who
later, after three years' imprisonment, was unjustly
hanged at Adana, although the Armistice had already
been declared.

Meanwhile, the Turkish soldiers in charge of the
convoys returned, their fell work done and their

16 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

purses filled with the pieces of gold they had taken
from those whom they had deported, and wantonly
put to death.

During this time my father was confined in the part
of the prison reserved for those under sentence. There
he soon contracted dysentery and, very much reduced
in strength and needing proper care, begged us to use
every possible means to procure his release. The influ-
ential Turks who claimed to be his friends were
unwilling to intervene. It was the Arabian Com-
mandant from Damascus, the one whom the Tchetta
Chief had struck in the Governor's mansion, who, at
the request of a friend, went to the captain in charge
of the prison, and asked hiim to remove my father to
a place of less severe confinement.

Meanwhile, the arrests continued, and became the
sole occupation of the Government officials and the
police. For hours, the head of the telegraph office
remained at the instruments, his anxious and worried
expression showing the importance of the secret
orders he was receiving. All Christian officials were
discharged, and the Christian members of the palace
force were degraded and dismissed with contempt.

17

The hatred of the Turks for the " Gaour,"^ increased,
their looks became blacker and blacker, and the fear
of the Christians increased with the passing of time.

The Turkish populace now openly menaced the
Christian citizens, with the connivance of the police,
calling them traitors, adopting a threatening attitude,
and seeming to await the signal for assault.

At night, the dwellings of rich Christians were in-
vaded, when a thoroughbred would be appropriated,
or whatever else of value pleased the robber. If the
owner resisted, shots were fired, and in the end he
had to submit.

We now lost all hope of seeing my poor father
released, and I, myself, avoided leaving the house, so
intolerable did I find it to face the openly expressed
hatred and scorn of the Turks,

One day I had occasion to go to the Ottoman Bank
on business, and went out of my ordinary route so as
not to pass the Government Building, wishing both
to avoid black looks and to spare myself the pain of
seeing the prison where my poor father languished.
Although short, my journey seemed long to me, and,

s Infidel.

18 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

fearing insult or pursuit, I walked more quickly. On
arriving at the Bank I knocked at a door on the first
floor, and found myself opposed 'by a sentry, who
hitherto had shown me every respect. He asked me
impertinently whom I wished to see.

*'The Manager," I replied.

" He is not here," he said.

" I shall wait for him," I answered.

On entering, I found neither M. Savoye nor my
young brother, who was an accountant. Two minutes
later the guard entered and said insolently, " There
is no one here. It is forbidden to wait here. Get
out!"

Keeping quite cool, I told him I required to see the
Manager, whom I should ask if he, a mere sentry, had
the right to act as he had done. My reply irritated
him and he advanced towards me angrily. I then
made my way to the door of Mr. Savoye's apartment,
which was in the same building, entered and met
Madame Savoye, whom I asked if her husband was
there. She replied in the negative, and noticing that,
in view of the grave circumstances of the time, my
presence troubled her, I told her in two words of the

MY father's death 19

gross rudeness of the sentry. I then asked to be
allowed to leave by her back door so as to avoid a
scene which might easily have fatal results for me,
and hurried ofï, thinking sadly of the unhappy lot of a
Christian in Turkey.

Some days before this incident, two well known
deputies, Zohrab and Wortkes Eiïendis, had arrived
from Constantinople. After being received with
honors by Haidar, the barbarous governor of the town,
and invited to his table by the hypocrite Mahmoud
Nedim, they were foully assassinated by Tchettas on
the road from Diarbekir to Sheikhan Dere. Shortly
before this, Nakhle Pasha Moutran of Baalbek, after
being spat upon in the streets of Damascus, had been
taken as far as Tele Abyadh, and put to death.

Police Commissioner Chakir, brother-in-law of
Mahmoud Nedim, made use of the occasion to fill his
own pockets. It was his custom to order the arrest
of a Christian, liberate him on receipt of a bribe, and
then rearrest him two days later. Whoever arrived,
exile, prisoner, or one who had been deported, Chakir
always found a means of getting money out of him.

20 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

Later, in the Prisoners' Camp at Afion-Kara-Hissar,
I heard of one instance in which he failed.

Major Stephen White, an Englishman, who had
been captured on the Suez Canal and taken to Urfa
with another officer of the Egytian Army, told me
that this same Chakir, learning that he had received
a sum of money from, his mother in England, tried his
best to obtain a share of it, but in vain. Major White
always alluded to Chakir and Nedim as the outstand-
ing ruffians in the massacres of Urfa.

One morning, the news spread that fifty of the more
prominent prisoners had been taken after midnight
to Diarbekir. The anxiety of my home may be
imagined! Was my father of the number? We
rushed oiï to the prison to find out. No, he was still
there, and was yet hopeful, for he had no suspicion of
the terrible fate which awaited him. Little did he
dream that his wife and eight children would soon
be weeping at his tragic end, and he the victim of a
shameful injustice.

We ran to the houses of the chief friends of our
family.

" Have mercy, Muslim Bey ! Save our father, your

MY father's death 21

old associate ! Save your friend, your brother ! He
is going to be deported and we shall lose him," with
tears in his eyes, cried my younger brother, Emine, who
daily grew thinner and paler, wasted by the fear of
losing his beloved father.

But the Chief of the Union and Progress Com-
mittee remained mute, saying nothing, doing nothing.
We could not make out his attitude. He was prob-
ably obeying some order he had received. Everything,
even one's best friends, had to be sacrificed for the
Committee.

During the night, a new convoy, in two sections,
was sent towards Diarbekir, the victims bound arm
to arm. One or two hours outside the town, near
Kara Koupru, they were shot in cold blood, and their
bodies left on the road for the ravens and the wolves.
Although they could not precisely know what had
happened to their menfolk, the families of these mar-
tyrs experienced the wildest apprehension and grief,
and the hearts of the mothers, wives, and daughters
told them that their dear ones were no more ; a fore-
boding which was confirmed by the hypocritical looks
and smiles of the returned murderers, who in the hope

22 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

of further bribes, came to reassure the relatives that
all was well.

More and more anxious as to the fate of our own
dear prisoner, we returned to the prison. Alas! we
were too late. My father, a follower of no party,
innocent of political crime, absorbed in his family and
his business, loved and esteemed by all, had been
taken along and slaughtered without the semblance
of a trial. He was mourned even by Turks, and his
friend Hadji Bekir, the leading Turk in the place, shed
tears on learning that he had been done to death.

A person who saw him being deported told us, two
days later, that my father was one of a group of
thirty led in the direction of Diarbekir. He delivered
to us a scrap of paper upon which the head of our
family had scribbled by moonlight, with trembling
hand, the following:

"We are leaving for Diarbekir. Pay Monsieur

N the sum of , which he has

lent me."

The note was signed with my father's signature.

He had then wept, according to our informant, and
said:

The Author's Father, R. Naayem

23

" I am patiently awaiting my fate. My life is of
little importance to me ! But my children ! What is
to become of them ? "

Taking out his watch he handed it to the messenger
to be delivered to Sami, his youngest child, then a boy
of nine, and requested him to keep it in remembrance
of him.

CHAPTER II

My Escape

We received the news of my father's murder early
in August, 1915. That very evening one of my
brothers, Djemil, who had coime from Aleppo to Urfa
some days before, fled on horseback with some com-
panions back to Aleppo in fear. At Tell Abyadh he
encountered Sallal, the son of an Arab Sheikh who
was a friend of the family, whom he begged to return
to Urfa with our horses and rescue the rest of the
family.

Three days later some English civilian prisoners
employed at the Ottoman Bank in the Administration
of the Public Debt, obtained permission to leave the
town, and despite the risk they ran, very kindly took
with them in their carriage two of my brothers,
George, aged thirteen, and Fattouh, who was two
years older. Thus there remained in Urfa only my
two youngest brothers and my mother. Soon after
Sallal, accompanied by Aziz Djenjil, a very brave and

26 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

devoted Christian employee of ours (dressed as a Be-
douin) arrived, and took the rest of the family, excepting
Emine and me, to Tel-Albiad. The station-master,
another friend, put them in the train for Aleppo.

My mother, before leaving, sent a large part of our
furniture to her cousin, M. P. Ganime. Twenty days
later it v^as all looted by the Turkish populace.

My brother Emine and I remained at Urfa, where
the arrests continued, several of my friends and ac-
quaintances being taken and 'massacred.

On August the 19th a police agent with some sol-
diers went to the house of an unfortunate Armenian to
take him into custody. Determined not to be trapped
without making an effort to defend himself, the man,
knowing that arrest meant death, shot and killed the
policeman and two soldiers. Armed Turks rushed
through the markets and streets, killing all the Christians
they encountered. Some managed to save themselves
by hiding. Many took refuge in the presbytery. My
brother Emine, who had been obliged to go to the bank,
had the greatest difficulty in reaching me.

The streets were strewn with the bodies of the six
hundred Christians killed, that night, and their blood

MY ESCAPE 27

literally ran in the streets. The murderers steeped their
hands in the steaming gore and made imprints on the
walls that bordered the streets. In this frightful orgy
English and French civilians, some of whom had been
interned at Urfa a month previously, also perished. Sev-
eral of them who happened to be in the streets at the
moment of the outburst were taken back by soldiers to
their homes, lest the populace should fall upon them by
error. One of them, a Frenchman of Aleppo, M. Ger-
main, had his throat cut by the ruffians. A Maltese who
was pursued and stoned took refuge in the house of a
Christian and was saved.

Two hours after the firing had ceased, I mounted to
the roof to see what was happening in the streets, and
noticed that the police, instead of calming the fanaticism
of the Turks, were inciting them to renew the massacre.
Not until all the Christians who were discovered in the
shops or in the streets had been killed was an order
issued to end the carnage.

In the evening, all was quiet, but no Christian dared
show himself, and the Armenians prepared to defend
themselves, barricading their premises. But the cow-

28 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

ardly murderers were afraid and attempted no further
harm.

The next morning I heard cries in a Httle lane near
our house where there was an oil press. A moment
later I saw a Turk named Moutalib leave his house
and make off in the direction of the cries. Half an
hour later I saw him return with his dagger stained
with blood, proud of his work, laughing and shout-
ing: " Hiar Guibi Kestim."^ The victims were two
workmen who had hidden themselves in the oil press.
The Turks, under pretence of saving them, had succeeded
in making them come out into the streets, where they
cut their throat, stamped on their heads and dragged
their bodies along the ground.

It was the duty of the Jews to drive carts and pick
up the dead bodies and throw them outside the town
to the dogs and birds of prey.^

In the afternoon, a soldier, accomipanied by the por-
ter from the Bank, came by order of the Manager, M.
Savoye, for my brother, Emine, who returned to the

*"I chopped him up like a cucumber!"

^This sinister duty had been imposed upon the Jews by the

Turks during the massacre of the Christians.

MY ESCAPE 29

Bank, where he resided. There he was safe, the estab-
lishment being guarded by the poHce.

Towards ten o'clock I saw the Governor himself,
Haidar Bey, passing through the streets with the
Chief of Police, to show that he had no official cogni-
zance of any disturbance, and to prove to the Chris-
tians that order had been restored, and that they could
come out without fear.

M. Savoye, I should like to state, displayed the high-
est courage during these terrible days in the way he
helped our family in our extremity. We owe him
the warmest debt of gratitude.

Sallal, our Bedouin friend, had promised to return
as soon as he had taken my mother and brother to a
place of safety, and the day after the massacre he
came to see me at the Presbytery. Being now alone,
I was in danger of arrest every moment, and decided
to take to flight. It was a hazardous undertaking,
but I was determined to make the attempt. Urfa had
become a very hell ! Muffling myself in Bedouin
robes, I prepared to leave with Sallal.

The town was not yet quite calm, and Christians
remained shut up in their houses, fearful of new out-

30 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

bursts, although every one of prominence among them
had already been executed. About five hundred Chris-
tian soldiers employed on the construction of roads
near the town had also been put to death. One alone
escaped. In giving me an account of his experiences,
he declared that the officers were keeping in their
tents young Christian girls, stolen from the convoys.
He spoke in particular of one very beautiful Chaldean
girl from Diarbekir, kept as a prostitute, and passed
from one Turk to another. By a miracle the girl sur-
vived and is living to-day in Urfa.

At seven o'clock of the evening of August the 21st,
1915, Sallal came, and I bade farewell to my friends,
including Father Emmanuel Kacha, who stayed be-
hind with his family.

Hurrying through the almost deserted streets, we
reached the house of one of my relatives, where I
donned the costume of a Bedouin. This consisted of
a long wide-sleeved shirt of white linen, an "aba,"^
and on my head I wore a " tcheffie."* As I spoke

""A sleeveless cloak of camel hair."

*A head-dress, square in shape, with long fringe, surmounted
by an " agal," a kind of camel-hair crown.

MY ESCAPE 31

Bedouin a little, I was not likely to be recognized.
Near the edge of the town we met a police agent and
two soldiers, who seemed to be waiting for us. The
valiant Sallal, who was armed with a large sword and
a revolver and was a man of great height, advanced
fearlessly. We both salaamed profoundly and passed
on, our salute being returned. A hundred yards fur-
ther on, my companion remarked that we had just had
a very narrow escape.

At the house of a friend outside the town we found
our two horses, and took the road to Tell Abyadh.

The moon shone softly down upon us, and my com-
panion, happy to have saved a friend from the claws
of the Turk, and moved by the beauty of the scene,
burst like a troubadour into the most beautiful Arabic
verse.

Three hours later, as we were about to halt on the
bank of a river, two horsemen appeared and rode
towards us. Sallal told me to take my horse and keep
at a distance. The newcomers turned out to be a
Turkish tax collector and a soldier, and after asking
Sallal for news of the town, they rode on.

Farther along, we met some Arabian horsemen,

32 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

among whom was Sallal's brother, a despotic chief
with whom he was on bad terms. Sallal was in the
happiest of moods. While passing us his brother,
bent on loot, called out:

" I quite understand ! You are busy saving another
Christian."

At these words I was alarmed, but Sallal, always
resourceful, repHed with a joke, and the danger
passed.

At twilight we came to the village where my com-
panion lived, and where I accepted his hospitality for
a day, his mother and brother welcoming me as if I
were a relative.

We had intended to continue our journey without
delay, but several Turks inopportunely arrived. They
thought me a Kara-Guetch, one of a marauding
Arabian tribe, then in revolt, and asked Sallal why
he had taken me under his roof. Fearing that it might
be discovered that I was a Christian, Sallal had his
brother take me to a distant spot in the country, and
the Turks left, threatening to report him to the Kai-
makan.^

°Lt. governor.

MY ESCAPE 33

On my return to the village I found everyone in a
state of alarm and terror, declaring that Sallal had
jeopardized their safety, so he mounted his horse, told
me to do likewise, and we rode at a gallop to Tell
Abyadh. There I met several of my parishioners, who
were in the service of the Bagdad Railway Company,
and was taken to the house of one of them, M. Yous-
souf Cherchouba, who received me in a very friendly
spirit. Then, wishing me a safe journey, my Arab
protector said good-bye, and returned to his own
home. Day had not yet broken. Cherchouba told me
in a low voice that persecutions had begun at Tell
Abyadh and that he was very anxious.

I knew the telegraph operator of the Railway Com-
pany, M. Dhiab, and on expressing a desire to see him,
was taken to his office by George Khamis, one of my
Chaldean parishioners. Circassian Guards, of whom
the Railway employees were in deadly fear, were
posted at the station. Had they suspected me, I
should have found myself in considerable danger. The
operator was very much astonished to see a Bedouin,
and wondered what one could want with him. He
was still more astonished when he found that the

34 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

Bedouin spoke and understood French. He was the
friend who had assisted to smuggle my mother and
brothers through, and it might be compromising for
me to remain in his office dressed as a Bedouin. I
was unable to change, as Sallal had left my clerical
dress on the road, so I hid until the evening train left.

An Arab had been notified, and for baksheesh^ hid
me in a neighboring village, which the inhabitants
had abandoned for the summer."^ There I waited
alone, and, being very fatigued, fell asleep on the
floor in a tiny room, to awake at break of day, bathed in
perspiration, but very much the better for my rest and
very hungry. An hour later the Arab returned with
some bread and " khather,"^ but the bread was so very
bad that, hungry as I was, I could not eat it.

When night came the Arab took me back to the
station, where I hid in a building until the arrival of
the Aleppo train. My friend, the telegraph operator,
came to an understanding with the conductor, receiv-

M bribe (Eng.).

"A tip (American).

'Evidently the winter home of a Nomadic tribe.

* Curdled milk.

* Sour-milk.

MY ESCAPE 35

ing a guarantee that I should be taken safe and sound
to Aleppo for a stipulated sum of money, which I
readily paid. I was put aboard a cattle truck, "which
had not been cleaned since its prior load had been
unshipped, so gave off a very disagreeable odor.

The train stopped and through the crack in the
doors I saw a guard approach my truck. It was the
conductor to offer me a place in a first-class carriage.
Because of my dress, I asked him to let me travel
third-class, but a brakesman, who noticed us con-
versing and who suspected our agreement, at Arab
Punar forcibly put ime into an open truck, during the
absence of the conductor.

At this place we took on deported families of Eng-
lish and French civilians, going from Urfa to Aleppo.
At the next stop, the first guard returned me to my
compartment in the coach, which was shared with
some invalid soldiers and some Turks from Urfa. The
latter commenced to make fun of me, as is their custom
with Bedouins, but I pretended to be asleep. We arrived
in Aleppo at ten o'clock the next morning.

At Aleppo I hunted up my cousin, Paris, who acted

36 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

as storekeeper for the Railway, in order to ask him to
direct me to where my mother lived.

I asked a Mohammedan who was in the station to
show me where the company's store was located. He
demanded baksheesh, and when I had complied he con-
descended to point with his finger to the particular depot.
Paris had not yet come to his office, and in accordance
with the Bedouin custom, I took up my position in the
shade of a wall a short distance away and waited. He
arrived ten minutes later and, recognizing me, gave
a cry of astonishment. I made a sign to him to keep
quiet. Much moved at seeing me, he abandoned all
thought of work, and placing himself entirely at my
disposal, conducted me to my family, who, fearing to
be molested by the authorities, had decided to live in
a house in the outskirts of the town. To get there we
to pass through many narrow and winding lanes.
Imagine, if you can, the tears of delighted surprise
with which my mother, who had begun to fear that
I had shared my father's tragic fate, welcomed me!

I had been a month at Aleppo, assisting the Chal-
dean parish priest of the town, when I received a

MY ESCAPE 37

telegram from His Beatitude, Thomas Emmanuel, the
Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon, suggesting that I should
go to Constantinople as a Chaplain to the English and
French prisoners of war in a Turkish camp.

CHAPTER III

The Fate of Urfa

The unhappy town of Urfa sufifered one of the sad-
dest fates ever recorded in history. The day after my
departure, August the 23rd, the Governor sent an
order to the Christians to leave their houses and carry
on their businesses. As soon as they obeyed, a second
order commanded the Armenians to leave the town.
Knowing what this meant, the unfortunate people
refused to obey. Already doomed, they preferred to
die in their homes than perish in the desert. The
government resorted to force to make them leave, and
the Armenians resisted, till finally, on September 23rd,
a pitched battle was fought. Although it lasted a
week, the Turks were unable to penetrate the Arme-
nian quarter. The Governor sent to Aleppo for rein-
forcements to put down the so-called " insurgent "
Christians, and Fakhri Pasha soon arrived at Urfa at
the head of an army supported by artillery. The
Armenian quarter was attacked, but the Turkish

40 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

troops, in spite of all their efforts, were powerless to
overcome the resistance of the brave Armenians, who,
seeing that in any case they had to die, defended them-
selves most valiantly. Several hundred of Turkish sol-
diers were killed in the course of the battle. Women
and girls threw themselves into the fray and assisted
their menfolk to defend their homes, their lives and
their honor.

Fakhri Pasha then opened fire with his artillery
upon the Armenian quarter, and a bombardment com-
menced which lasted a fortnight. Several English and
French witnesses interned at Urfa at the tiime told me
later that it was a German officer who had directed the
fire. A large number of combatants took refuge in
the American Mission, whereupon the Turks ranged
their guns on the Mission and managed to destroy
part of the building. Through the breaches thus made,
they were able to penetrate the lines of the defenders,
who were obliged to hoist the white flag.

The bombardment had caused a conflagration,
which spread over a wide area, owing to the fact that
many of the Armenians, themselves, seeing death ap-
proaching, gathered in crowds in their houses, and

THE FATE OF URFA 41

rather than give themselves up alive to the Turks, set
fire to their dwellings and perished in the flames.

After the inevitable surrender of the remnant of the
Armenians, the Turks gave freer play than ever to
their innate barbarity. Throwing themselves on the
quarter, they put to the sword all the Christian men,
women and children they met, looted everywhere, and
set aflame all that remained. The men still alive
were dragged along the Diarbekir road outside the
town, as so many of their fellow Christians had been
before them, and were executed. Some women and
children were ranged on the edge of an abyss, stabbed
and pushed over, to be devoured by the dogs and birds
of prey attracted by the odor of the bodies.

The women and children who still survived, about
two thousand in all, were shut up in an immense
building, known as the " Millet Khan." Here they
were the butt of Turkish ill-treatment. Many of them
died of hunger and of typhus, which spread rapidly.
The corpses were taken to a distance and emptied into
huge ditches ; living children cast in with the dead.

In the courtyard of the cathedral, ghastly scenes
took place, where heaps of bodies almost blocked the

42 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

main entrance, living and dead piled together; the
death rattle of those in their last agony distinctly
audible from time to time.

And on one occasion, a large number of men and
women were publicly hanged, in the presence of the
rejoicing Turkish populace.

Thus fifteen thousand people were done to death
in a few days.

The American Missionary, Mr. Lesly, with whom a
certain number of the Armenian defenders had taken
refuge, was summoned to appear before a courtmartial
on the charge of having taken part in the revolt. One
day, on leaving the court, they found him dead on
the road. A paper was found in his pocket in which
he stated that he had not been implicated in the mat-
ter of the Armenian revolt.

CHAPTER IV

My Prison Experiences

At the beginning of November, 1915, a telegram
from His Beatitude, Emmanuel Thomas, the Chaldean
Patriarch of Babylon, suggested to me that I should go
to Constantinople as Chaplain to the Allied Prisoners of
War. I set out, furnished v^ith a permit from the Gov-
ernor of Aleppo.

Pope Benedict XV, after several months' negotiations,
had obtained from the Turkish Government permission
for priests to visit the Prisoners' Camp. They v^ere,
however, to be Chaldeans.

On my arrival at Constantinople, the War Office
granted me the requisite papers, and on December the
15th I left for Afion-Kara-Hissar, a concentration
camp for English, French and Russian prisoners. I
was accompanied by a young and very devoted priest
from Smyrna, the Reverend Moussoullou, who, claiming
to be a Chaldean by origin, obtained permission to replace

44 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

the Chaldean priest originally appointed to assist me, but
who was unable, by reason of his advanced age, to under-
take the long journey from Aleppo.

It was an opportunity for my colleague to rejoin
his parents, who were then at Afion-Kara-Hissar, and
whom he had not seen since his ordination.

We arrived at Afion on December 17th and were
met at the station by a Turkish officer, who conducted
us to the camp in which we were to be interned.

I pass over here much detail of which I hope to
treat in the near future in a separate work, entitled : —
" The Allied Prisoners in Turkey."

When I had been there about three or four months,
that is to say, early in the Spring of 1916, three Brit-
ish Naval officers escaped. The Commandant of the
camp, Assim Bey, a Stafï Colonel, was dismissed, and
replaced by the notorious tyrant, Mazloum Bey, a con-
scienceless, cruel and despotic creature of the Commit-
tee of Union and Progress. His assistant, Captain
Safar, was no less cruel. Both of them took the great-
est pleasure in worrying and torturing the prisoners.

Several months passed. Towards the end of Sep-
tember, 1916, Mazloum gave orders for a general

±:^^

< %

J? ^

MY PRISON EXPERIENCES 45

search to be made in the camp, and the belongings of
the officers were searched with meticulous care. Of
this we learnt from Dr. Brown, an Englishman, who
came to look after the prisoners.

Shortly after tîTis, Major Ahmed Hamdi, a reserve
officer and a relatively good and honest man, came
with Captain Safar to warn me that I was to leave the
camp and live in a house near that of the officers. I
left my quarters on the morning of October the 2nd,
two British prisoners being kind enough to carry my lug-
gage. The new quarters assigned to me had formerly
been occupied by Christians, who had been exiled or
massacred.

The evening being cool, and having a few minutes'
leisure, I took a constitutional walk, up and down a
space of a hundred yards before my door, in company
with a kindly and sympathetic British naval officer.
Commander Goad, and a French lieutenant, named
Otavie, who had fought at the Dardanelles. Being
desirous of familiarizing myself with English, I chatted
a great deal with my companions.

In accordance with the routine of the concentration
camp, we returned to our respective quarters at 7

46 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

o'clock. Five minutes later gaolers made their usual
round, and doubly locked our doors with their large
keys.

Absolute silence reigned in the camp, each man being
shut off from his fellows. My orderly, a faithful Indian
prisoner, named Enadji, brought me my dinner. As I
ate, I thought of the hundreds of prisoners whom I had
been obliged to leave.

At 8 o'clock, I was glancing through a Turkish
daily newspaper, my orderly was sleeping soundly in
his quarters, when the lock turned and the hall-door
opened. A knock sounded on the door of my room !
Leaving my newspaper, I arose and opened the door.
Nebzet, a Cypriot Turk, who held the post of English
interpreter, entered and told me very politely that Maz-
loum, the Turkish Commandant, wished to see me.

Putting on my overcoat, as it was chilly, I went
out with the interpreter, and, expecting to return
shortly, I left my lamp alight, and did not even dis-
turb my Indian orderly.

I suspected absolutely nothing, and I remember
asking the interpreter for what special reason the

MY PRISON EXPERIENCES 47

Commandant wished to see me at this hour. He
replied that he knew nothing about it.

" I hope he is not angry with me again," I remarked,
jokingly, as he had been many times.

" I do not think so," said Nebzet. *' As a matter of
fact, he was very gay this evening."

On the way to the Commandant's house the inter-
preter chatted familiarly and almost cordially, and,
on our arrival, deferentially stood aside for me to
enter first. I seated myself on the nearest chair, but
Nebzet pressed — or rather obliged — me to take the
post of honor, offering me a cigarette, which, not
being a smoker, I decHned. He then left me ; and, two
minutes later, the Commandant, clad in his night shirt,
entered with Major Ahmed Hamdi, Captain Safar,
Nebzet and a companion whom I did not then know,
but whom I found later to be an influential citizen of
Afion-Kara-Hissar, named Khalil Agha. The Com-
mandant came towards me and with the smiles and
gestures of a comedian, shook hands most graciously
and offered me a seat reserved for honored guests.
Then addressing the companion I did not know, he
said:

48 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

" Here is our very great and most sincere friend."

After an exchange of greetings, as we sat down, a
long silence ensued, until the Commandant broke it
by saying to the interpreter:

" Now, bring the letter and read it."

Nebzet read the following words, which I quote
from memory:

" Mon bien cher Commandant." . . .

As I heard these words, the situation became clear
to me. This was a letter I had addressed to the
French Captain of the eight months pre-
viously, when the French prisoners of war had left our
camp. I had wished to follow them to Bozanti, in the
Taurus Mountains, where they were to be employed
on the construction of an important tunnel on the
Bagdad Railway. At the time, the camp commandant
was Assim Bey, with whom the senior French officer
was on good terms. When almost all the English and
French prisoners had left I requested Assim Bey to
allow me to accompany them, as was natural, writing

as well to Monsieur X , and begging him to use

his influence with Assim to this end. At the same
time, I recollect, I expressed my regards for the pris-

MY PRISON EXPERIENCES 49

oners and towards their country, and also my wish to
be able to make myself of use to them.

The Turkish Commandant had a grievance against
me, and made this letter a pretext for taking his
revenge.

Four months before, it is true, I had disobeyed his
orders in regard to the burial of a Russian doctor,
who had died of typhoid fever. My church did not
permit me to conduct the funeral services for those
professing another religion, and I had tried to excuse
myself to Ahmed Effendi, who had come to me with
an order from Mazloum to read the last rites for this
Russian. I refused, but gave no reason for doing so,
fearing I should be misunderstood. The officer re-
tired without insisting.

The next day, the Commandant expressed his dis-
pleasure to me in person.

The same difficulty arose on two other occasions,
when again I refused to obey, and again evaded giv-
ing my reason. I was exceedingly loath to wound
the susceptibilities of the prisoners, all of whom I
regarded as brothers in adversity and between whom

50 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

I never made distinctions other than those laid down
by the canons of the church. But in the end, Com-
mandant Mazloum insisting, it was necessary to give
the true explanation.

Mazloum had become still further exasperated
when, at Easter, on his wishing to prevent my going
to see the officer prisoners, I wrote to him that it was
my duty to put myself at their service, and that, if he
made difficulties, I should send in my resignation to
Constantinople.

Shortly after this many English prisoners arrived
from Kut-el-Amara, and a Russian doctor was
assigned to their care, although he knew no English.
As I had learned to speak the language a little, I
offered my services as interpreter. One day Maz-
loum came to the prison quarters and, seeing me with
the doctor, expressed his disapproval. He told me
that I had nothing to do with the Russian doctor,
which was absurd, since it was my duty to be with
all the prisoners. Furthermore, as the doctor was
unable to understand the patients, he manifestly
needed my assistance.

MY PRISON EXPERIENCES 51

The camp was completely filled by the new pris-
oners, almost all invalids, through Turkish treatment.
Owing to the great number of them, the doctor was
unable to pay them all daily visits, and consequently
left certain remedies with me, which I was to admin-
ister. To do this, it was necessary to enter certain
isolation rooms, labelled " Quarantine Quarters." This
was made known to Mazloum, who for this reason
bore me still greater ill-will, which was intensified
when he discovered that not only did I give the
medicine, but, at the request of the prisoners, wrote a
few reassuring words to their relatives. Mazloum
sent for me one day, and reprimanded me, forbidding
me to correspond at all, even with my own nearest
relations, for a period of three months.

Finally, on the arrival of a convoy of Indian
prisoners, these British had to be transferred to
another part of the town. I was prevented from
following them, being assigned to the incoming
Indians, none of whom were Christians, and who
spoke a language of which I knew not one word. But
the English claimed my services, and even expressed
the wish to return to my camp. Wearied by their

52 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

importunity, the Commandant had them returned, but
held me responsible for the incident.

Taking everything into consideration, therefore,
Masloum Bey cherished considerable animosity
towards me, and as he read the words, " Bien cher
Commandant," he said : " Look you ! It is his
very dear commandant ! " Then coming to a passage
in which I asked the officer to give me some simple
information about the condition of the captives, he
cried : " You see ! He is complaining that we are
ill-treating them, so that later on he may pose as their
defender. He is taking notes in order to write
on their behalf. He admires their courage, and well
he may, for these are the brave warriors who have
taken Constantinople and Berlin ! " His lips curled in
sarcastic taunts.

On finishing this tirade Mazloum arose and in a
threatening manner said to me :

" Now, hand over your notes and those which the
French Captain gave you ! I want them ! Unless
you do so immediately, I shall kill you."

Those present looked at me in a hostile manner.

ON THE RACK

53

shouting threats and menaces. Captain Safar ground
his teeth and hurled insults at me, and the Command-
ant cried to the Tchaouche:^

" Take the priest downstairs ! We have important
work to get through."

On the Rack
A petty officer told me to follow him down a stair-
case which led to an underground corridor. The Com-
mandant threw himself upon me and commenced to
beat and cufï me with all his strength, finally hurling
me to the ground. A sailor and the interpreter, Neb-
zet, held me face downwards with my hands behind
my back, while the petty officer lit up the corridor
with a torch. The Commandant then seized a heavy
stick, with which he rained blows upon me until I
quivered with pain. All the while he blasphemed
like a fiend. Each blow jolted every bone in my body
and shook me to my very soul. Unable any longer
to support my sufïering, I ended by screaming, twist-

*Tchaouche is literally " Sergeant," but in as much as the
guard at Afion-Kara-Hissar was naval, it probably corresponds
to " petty-officer."

54 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

ing about and howling, each blow seeming to bring
death nearer and nearer. The Commandant, after giv-
ing me about fifty blows, passed the bludgeon to the
Captain, who in turn fell upon me, accompanying his
blows with the grossest insults. When he grew tired
the Commandant invited Kol Aghassi^ Ahmed Hamdi
to continue, but he refused; whereupon, seizing the
club anew, the Commandant attacked me again, mean-
ing this time to kill me. My whole frame was twisted
in agony. One would have thought that my poor soul
in its suffering was trying to escape from my body as
my screams reechoed through the subterranean gal-
lery.

The Kol-Aghassi, touched with pity, and fearing,
perhaps, for my life, threw himself upon the Com-
mandant, trying to calm him, but the maniac in his
fury continued to rain blows upon m-e, declaring that
he " wanted " to kill me. Placing himself before the
madman, my protector, with the aid of Khalil Agha,
the citizen of Afion-Kara-Hissar, forced him to stop
by snatching the instrument of torture from his hands.

'Major.

ON THE RACK 55

I was then more dead than alive, my sight was
dimmed, and I was in a fever of delirium. The petty
officer helped me to arise, and I again stood before
the Commandant, who leapt at me again, giving me
many blows full in the face with liis fists. Then, seiz-
ing me by the beard with all his strength, he pulled
part of it out by the roots, causing the blood to drip
from my chin.

Intervening once more, the Kol-Aghassi saved me
from his hands, and I was led to the room above by
the petty officer. On arriving at the threshold the
Commandant said:

" Leave him on the ground like a dog in front of the
door, for he is the friend of the prisoners, the infamous
traitor."

Once again he began to insult me as I stood at the
door, until, overcome again by blind rage, he rushed
at me, grabbed the little of my beard which remained
and tugged at it with all his strength. The Kol-
Aghassi once more interfered, and snatched me from
the clutch of the tyrant. Blood, flowing freely from
my chin, was staining my cassock.

The tired ruffian stopped and, going straight up to

56 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

Khalil Agha as if he were mad, knelt before him, and
raising his headgear, said :

" Put your hand on my head! Feel how it is burn-
ing!"

Arising, he burst out again into a string of insults
at my expense. When he had finished, he seated him-
self and gave orders that I was to be put outside the
door on the floor. Then, noticing that his hands were
stained with blood, he washed them and cried :

" Search the dog thoroughly."

The petty officer carried out the order, emptying my
pockets and passing what he found to the interpreter,
whose face lit up.

" Bring me those papers," cried the Commandant,
joyfully. '' If there are any written in Arabic, I know
how to read them. I have been in Syria and know
Arabic."

To prove his assertion he screamed insults at me
in that language. Then the interpreter and the Cap-
tain examined attentively the few pages which re-
mained of my little notebook. On finding no money
on me, he exclaimed:

"Where is your money, you dog? I have paid you

ON THE RACK 57

L. T. 100^ during the last year as salary. Give it to
me, traitor ! Tell me where your money is ! "

" Search him well ! " he ordered the petty officer,
who, putting his hands into my pockets, brought out
my small purse, which he passed to the Commandant.
The latter emptied it, finding some Egyptian bank-
notes and about ten rupees, which the Indian pris-
oners had exchanged with me for Turkish money,
since their own coinage was not current in the coun-
try. Seeing this, the Commandant cried:

"Where did you get this money? You have stolen
it from the English! You are a thief! "

The amount found in my pocket came, if I remem-
ber well, to about L. T. 10* in gold and paper. This
was noted.

" Search him again," cried Mazloum. " Take off
his clothes."

The petty officer took off my overcoat and my cas-
sock and turned them inside out. I remained in shirt
and trousers for half an hour, kneeling on the ground,
shivering with cold. When the petty officer declared

•$500.00.
*$50.00.

58 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

that he had found nothing, the interpreter was told
by the Commandant to go and search my room. The
order was carried out immediately, and he returned
with some coins he had found on the table.

The Commandant, the Captain, and Nebzet whis-
pered together for a few minutes, after which the
interpreter left the room, and the petty officer was
instructed by the Commandant to take me to the bar-
racks. It was about eleven o'clock. Passing through
several streets in the dark, we came to a large house
in the Christian quarter. The interpreter reappeared
before us, as if by magic, and made a sign to the petty
officer to enter the house, the vestibule of which gave
forth a nauseating smell. Pointing to an iron door
which was shut, the interpreter said:

" There is someone quite near here who will be able
to hear us. Let us go up to the next story."

We climbed a tiny staircase, which led to a corri-
dor, where three naval petty officers awaited us.
Other sailors were asleep.

What was going to become of me? What new tor-
ture was I to expect?

The interpreter, still most polite, spoke to me and

IN A DUNGEON 59

invited me to lie on the floor, face downwards. Two
petty officers held my arms across my back. This
time it was the interpreter who was to be my tor-
turer. Taking a rod he commenced to thrash me, two
petty officers held me and two others took it in turn
to see which could best exercise his muscles upon me ;
accompanying each blow with insults and roars of
laughter. I cannot give any impression of the suffer-
ing I underwent from these blows. As they fell thick
upon my bleeding wounds, my whole nervous system
seemed to give way. I screamed and writhed and
shouted, my body heaving, despite the rough hands of
the men who held me, finally fainting from the excru-
ciating agony.

In a Dungeon

Water was thrown on my face to bring me back
from a condition of lethargy which seemed likely to
be fatal. Opening my eyes, I saw my executioners
before me. Five minutes' respite was given me. The
humane and kindly interpreter calmed me, saying:

" Come along, sir, don't make a fuss ! A few more

60 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

strokes and it will all be over. It is the Command-
ant's order."

Replacing his rod by a whip, he recommenced with
greater energy, until I fainted again.

On recovering consciousness, I heard the interpreter
say to the sailors :

" Get him downstairs now."

I was unable to arise, so they dragged me the length
of the staircase and threw me into a portion of the
building which had been changed into a stable, shut-
ting the door upon me and posting a sentry. I re-
mained some time, lying in the dirt, groaning, unable
to move because of my wounds, to which even the
least movement brought back the pain. When I was
able to bring my mind to bear upon my surroundings
I found that I was wet through, and I noticed that
the room was flooded and that I was lying on a bed
of slime. Crawling along with difficulty, I reached a
corner of the place which was, as yet, free of water.
The sentry at my door watched me through a little
window, grinding his teeth and hurling insults at me
all night, for on my account he had been obliged to
keep awake all night. Thus I remained in my corner

IN A DUNGEON 61

until, at last, day came, when a few faint rays of light
penetrated my dungeon.

It happened the kitchen was behind the stable where
I lay, and the sailors came in turn to wash themselves
at a place near by, when each made some ill-disposed
or vile observation with reference to me. My gaoler
declared to his comrades that if he were allowed, he
would cut my throat most willingly.

Day brought me no rest. I was suffering atro-
ciously; my body was one sore, and my chin, so
swollen, and the remains of my beard so stuck to-
gether with congealed blood, that I could hardly open
my mouth. In the afternoon, stifï from lying motion-
less on the ground, I made an effort to crawl as far
as the little window, which looked out on the main
entrance. Here I noticed the grating of an iron gate,
which opened and shut again immediately. The
sound of footsteps which followed, made me think
that a prisoner of war was being incarcerated.

Far from my country, far from my people, having
lived now for over twelve months with prisoners,
the sight of these men had become as dear to me as
the sight of relatives. I pitied this poor prisoner, like

62 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

me, at the mercy of the pitiless Turk. Raising myself,
I tried to get to the window, although the movement
caused me great pain. I saw no one from my point
of observation but some Russian prisoners at work
in a road^mending gang, and from time to time I
heard their voices.

After remaining for some time at the window, I
heard a noise. An adjoining cell opened, and I saw
that it was occupied by a British naval officer, a Mr.
Skaife, but owing to the presence of the sentry I dared
not make him the least sign. In the evening my
gaoler threw a bit of bread to me through my prison
window. That was all ! I begged a drop of water
to quench my torturing thirst, a request which ob-
tained for answer a torrent of insults. Weak with
mental suffering, and with the pain from the wounds
in my face where imy beard had been torn out, I could
not open my mouth to eat. Only on the third day
was I able to swallow a morsel of dry bread.

Black thoughts began to assail me. I thought of
my father, who fifteen months before, without provo-
cation, and through sheer hatred, at the instigation
of the worst brigand of the country, Deputy Mah-

IN A DUNGEON 63

mond-Nedim, had been imprisoned fifty days, and
then, perhaps after being scourged, had been mas-
sacred on the Diarbekir Road. I realized that I might
meet the same fate. The scenes of horror, and the
massacres I had witnessed at Urfa came back to me.
The spectre of the ferocious Turk stained with human
blood seemed to rise before me. Death I looked upon
as happiness and a deliverance from what I suffered.
Then I thought of my mother, who had lost her hus-
band, and was so soon to hear of the death of her son.
I seemed to hear the sobs of my little brothers, who
had already suffered so much when my father was
butchered, and whose tears would flow again at the
news of the tragic death of their elder brother. I
thought of my parishioners at Urfa — now scattered;
of my poor Assyro-Chaldean fellow-countrymen,
ruined and massacred ; all, by that same bloody hand
of the barbarous and implacable Turk !

Another cause of torment to me was the fear that
the ferocious Commandant, Mazloum, might discover
various notes I had received from prisoners regarding
their captivity and ill-treatment by the Turks. The
knowledge of the existence of these notes was always

64 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

before my mind, and left me frozen with apprehen-
sion. I thought also of the French Commandant, to
whom I had addressed the letter which had got me
into trouble, and feared that trouble had also come
upon him through me. Then my thoughts turned to
the poor prisoners, who would be grieved at hearing
of my fate, and thought to myself if, for a letter con-
taining nothing of importance, I have had to suffer so
much, what shall I have to endure if it be discovered
that I have been in the confidence of the prisoners?
As soon as inquiries are made, they will learn that I
am the son of a man who was executed on the false
charge of having conspired against the Government.

As I was indulging in these thoughts night fell, and
sleep began to overpower me. But how was I to lie
down in a room flooded with water? Finding in a
corner the wooden frame of a small window, I placed
it on the ground and stretched myself upon it, face
downwards; for owing to the swelling of my bruises,
I could sleep neither upon my side nor upon my back.
The wooden frame, at any rate, kept me ofif the mud!
Folding my arms under my head, I drowsed uneasily,
haunted by nightmares.

IN A DUNGEON 65

Next morning, nothing of importance to chronicle
occurred, save that the jailer refused me water. At
midday, standing before my little window, I noticed
people going to and fro ; and Mr. Skaife's door opened
and shut repeatedly. I heard some talk of a carriage
in which a bed was to be placed, and passing soldiers
smiled and congratulated Mr. Skaife, who appeared
and prepared to leave. My jailer, having disappeared
for the moment, I took my chance and called to Mr.
Skaife, who turned, and, surprised to see me, made
signs, asking me why I was there. I told him in a
few words in English of my imprisonment, and oF
what I had suffered. The jailer coming on the scene,
I ceased speaking, and Mr. Skaife pretended to have
heard nothing. Nevertheless, these few words cheered
me.

" Now, if I disappear," I thought, " this Englishman
will be able to bring the matter to the notice of the
responsible authorities."

The carriage arrived, Mr. Skaife's bed was brought
out, and he left the prison. This was about four
o'clock in the afternoon.

In the evening a Sergeant opened my door, and.

66 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

telling me to come out, conducted me to Mr. Skaife's
room, a tiny cellar with thick walls and a double door
of iron. It was seven feet square and had been used
by the Christian owners of the house as an opium
store. The former Christian population of the town
had a monopoly of this drug, which was an important
article of exportation from Aflon-Kara-Hissar for
medical purposes. In changing my quarters I did not
forget to take the piece of bread, which had been given
to me the evening before, and which served me as a
pillow at night. There was a hole about eighteen
inches square in the corner of the room opening on
the street. Through this, I heard the voices of Eng-
lish and French officers, and realized that I was within
their lines.

The flagstones being like ice, I decided not to lie
down, and stamped up and down my cage. At length
tired out, I wanted to sleep, but had nothing on which
to lie. I knocked at the door and a petty officer
appeared with a torch, and asked me what I wanted.
I requested him to bring me the wooden window
frame from my first cell, as I wished to lie down upon

IN A DUNGEON 67

it. He refused, crying, " Yassak ! "^ and slammed the
door. Kneeling in the corner of the room, I tucked
my overcoat round my legs, placed the bread on the
ground, and fell asleep with my head upon it.

Next day I was tortured by thirst, not having drunk
any water for three days. I knocked on my door and
asked for a glass of water. The jailer showed annoy-
ance, but eventually brought me a bottle filled with
liquid, which I hesitated to drink, knowing that the
savage was capable of poisoning me. As a precau-
tion, I drank at first only tiny mouthfuls at long inter-
vals. Then, breaking my bread, I moistened a little
piece in the water and ate it.

The fourth night v/as passed in the same way as the
third, and I slept in the same fashion ; but I awoke
with a chill, and suffered so acutely from colic that I
groaned continually. Hearing me, the sentry appeared
at the door, and I asked for a doctor. The man told
me that I did not deserve one, and that I ought to die
like a dog.

"You traitor of a priest!" he cried. Then he shut
the door and vanished.

That is forbidden!

68 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

I was SO weak and worn out that I could not stand.
Lying on the ground, I resigned myself to death from
exhaustion. About ten o'clock the door opened.
Commandant Mazloum entered the cell and began to
abuse me.

" Die like a dog, you ungrateful traitor ! " he said.
" You Christians live among us, but you are ever
ready to bite us like venomous snakes. We ought to
crush your heads and get rid of you."

Raising his foot, he brought it down as if he wished
to stamp upon me. Then, with a final string of his
choicest insults, he left me.

Towards midday a camp bed, formed of three
planks, was brought to me, but without mattress or
blankets. The senior petty officer of the camp, Osman
Tchaouche, who later robbed me, accompanied the
sailor who carried the bed, and as if to let me know
of his own goodness, said :

" It was I who begged the Commandant to send you
the bed."

This was a lie, of course. He then remonstrated
with me on my treason, and reprimanded me for the
attachment I had shown the French, towards their

IN A DUNGEON , 69

fatherland, and also for my exaggerated devotion to
the other prisoners.

" Are you not committing a crime towards Turkey,"
he asked, " when you invite her enemies to your table,
give them remedies, and tend them when they are ill?
You who are an Ottoman subject? "

Evidently my captors had spied upon me at night
through the window of my room, which opened on
the street, and seen prisoners in my quarters. After
a long sermon he went ofif, still raving about my
ingratitude.

When evening came, another petty officer arrived,
opened my cell and ordered me to follow him. My
heart began to beat rapidly, not knowing what new
misery I was to undergo. He led me to the spot
where Nebzet and his companions had beaten me;
and thence into a dark room, which, although without
light, was more dry and habitable than the other. This
gave me courage. From this day, however, the sailors
and jailers were less hard and spiteful towards me.
Since I was now in some sense their guest, in that I
had come to live among them, they seemed to have
less against me, and called me " The Prisoners' Priest."

70 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

As night fell, silence reigned throughout the bar-
racks. I heard the sailors say to one another in low
tones, " Yuzbachi galdi,"^ and soon after Captain
Safar, under whose command they served, entered and
made his way to my room. His hard and masterful
voice demanded light, and, preceded by Osman
Tchaouche, who bore a torch, he entered my new cell.
Other sailors crowded round curiously. The Captain
approached and saluted me amicably, asking after my
health, as if nothing had happened. I thanked him,
and he made hypocritical excuses for my ill-treatment,
saying that it had been caused by the natural indigna-
tion aroused by my scorn for things Turkish.

" At bottom we wish you no harm," he said, and
asked me if I had need of anything. I begged him to
be so good as to send me a bed, mattress and some
blankets.

" Certainly," he replied, " you shall have them im-
mediately. You need not worry. You are my guest.
The Commandant cannot hear your name mentioned,
and had resolved to leave you in the cellar, but I inter-
ceded for you, and insisted, saying that I should hold

6 " The Captain has come.'

IN A DUNGEON

71

myself responsible for you and should keep you in the
midst of my men in the barracks."

He then left me, taking away the light. An hour
later, my bed clothes arrived, and I was able to sleep
that night, and recover a little from my experiences.
I was puzzled as to my future, and every time I
thought of what I had undergone I broke out into a
cold perspiration.

After a night's sleep, I felt very hungry, having had
almost nothing to eat for several days. The evening
before I had asked Captain Safar to allow me to have
some eggs and milk. He had said he would ask the
Commandant, who had forbidden anything except dry
bread. A sentry, who was relieved every two hours,
was posted before my room, which was dark and cold,
the panes of the two windows opening on to the cor-
ridor being broken. The sentry had orders to watch
me closely and even accompanied me to the lavatory,
to prevent me from speaking to anyone.

I asked to see the petty officer, and asked if I could not
get someone to buy me some food. The request was
passed on to Captain Safar, who gave me permission
to buy milk only, a very great favor, however,

72 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

although the sailor charged with the purchase swin-
dled me outrageously. The Kol-Aghasi sent me a little
money, and continued to do so regularly.

Though not yet at liberty, I felt that my new situa-
tion was a great improvement on that of the evening
before. The coming and going of the sailors was a
distraction. Nevertheless black thoughts worried me
at night, and in the darkness of my cell I continued to
suflFer from nightmares. After nine o'clock the silence
was as profound as that of a 'monastery, only the
tramp of the sentry was to be heard.

About eleven I heard footsteps, my door opened,
and there entered Commandant Mazloum, accom-
panied by the interpreter, Nebzet, and a senior officer.
I was overcome at the sight of this savage, who so
much desired my death, and remained stretched mo-
tionless on my bed as he stood beside it. As usual,
Mazloum began with abuse, and then remarked ironic-
ally to the officer:

"You see this papas? He has come among the
prisoners to foment trouble. He is urging the Eng-
lish to bring charges against the Turkish Government
to the notice of the American Ambassador. He would

IN A DUNGEON Th

appear even to have entered into relations with the
English War Office. He distributes money to the
English prisoners to help them to escape and urges
them to revolt. He is even taking notes which he
intends to use later against the Turks."

Then looking contemptuously at me, he observed :

" Why! He still has some of his beard left! "
The officer in his turn said to me :

" What evil have the Turks done you that you
should dislike them ? "

I remained silent, and the vile Cypriot interpreter,
Nebzet, seized me by the collar and pulled the few hairs
which remained of my beard.

" Answer ! " he cried.

The officer intervened and forbade him to do me
further harm. Such evidence of humane feeling in a
Turk I shall not easily forget. To myself I said :

"What evil have they done me? Well, all they
have done is to kill my father, massacre my country-
men, and now to flay me alive ! "

The officer, asking then whence I came, the interpre-
ter answered:

*' From Aleppo."

74 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

He then began to talk to me very affably in Arabic.
I did not reply. Mazloum now closed the interview
with the usual torrent of vituperation, my visitors
retired, and I was able to breathe again.

But Mazloum's words as to my relations with the
prisoners remained in my mind. Had he discovered
the letters of protest they had written and signed,
regarding the ill-treatment to which they had been
subjected? Had he found my own notes and papers?
Among them was a letter of thanks to me from an
Englishman, a certain Sergeant Smith, written before
we separated. I had helped him with money when
he arrived in the camp in so pitiable a state that, had
he not been assisted, he would have died. If the
Commandant had chanced upon this letter he would
probably take it for granted that I was distributing
money among the prisoners to enable them to escape.
There were also some fifty pages, which Smith had
written about his captivity and that of his com-
panions, and their wanderings between Bagdad to
Afion-Kara-Hissar. Smith had dictated this to me to
teach me English, and the narrative did not praise the
Turk.

IN A DUNGEON 75

As for the proLest to the American Ambassador, this
had emanated from the British soldiers, incensed at
the bad treatment accorded the prisoners of war by
the Commandant and the jailers. This protest had
been forwarded to Mazloum himself for transmission
to Constantinople. Nebzet told the Commandant that
it was I who had put them up to this.

The prisoners had been condemned to work at
house-building from 6 a. m. to 7 p. m. under the petty
tyrant of the garrison, Nebzet, a mere interpreter,
who, with a whip in one hand and a revolver in the
other, lost no opportunity of scourging the poor vic-
tims whenever, wearied with fatigue, they expressed
the least discontent. One day a prisoner named Noble
revolted, absolutely maddened by the ill-treatment of
the wretch, and resisted the Tchaouche. Nebzet came
up, and, after beating the man without mercy, reported
him to the Commandant, who sentenced him to work
on Sundays, a day on which the prisoners did not
work as a result of a protest, although at a later date
this privilege was abolished.

When Sunday came, the Tchaouche arrived to take
Noble to his work. Noble refused to go. Nebzet

7(i SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

came on the scene, but Noble remained obstinate, even
though an English Sergeant, named Cherryman,
pleaded with him. The Sergeant then came to me and
asked me to advise Noble to work, so as to prevent
worse happening to him. I went to his room and per-
suaded him to start. Nebzet, feeling affronted that I
had succeeded where he had failed, went off to the
Commandant and stated that it was I who had urged
the prisoners to refuse to work on Sundays. Mazloum
lost his temper and forbade me to leave the camp
either for the purpose of seeing prisoners, whether offi-
cers or men, or to make purchases in the market. I
was thus " gated " for forty days.

With these reflections, I fell asleep, to awake next
day, happy in the knowledge that I was going to have
some milk. I asked the Tchaouche to send for a pint,
for lack of food had greatly weakened me. It made
me feel a new man. After this, I had a diet of milk
for several days, when, tiring of the milk, I asked Cap-
tain Safar to let me have something else. He granted
my request, and, encouraged by his kindness, I asked
and obtained his consent to have my trunk transferred
from my quarters to my cell, since I needed a change

IN A DUNGEON 77

of linen. It was brought to me, and on opening it I
found everything safe except some provisions, stolen
probably by Osman Tchaouche, whose manner made
me think him guilty. It was he, in fact, who later
robbed me of all my clothes and certain other effects
while I was in the hospital.

Finding my mirror, I looked at myself, and was
terrified to discover that I was as pale as a corpse, with
my chin bare of beard except for a few hairs, which
but added to my ghastly aspect. My eyes were rimmed
with black, and the whites were bloodshot.

One day I was brought some food from a restaurant,
but the next day instructions were- changed, and I had
to do my own cooking, a sailor bringing me what was
necessary in the way of meat, potatoes, and other
edibles. The sentry took me each day to the kitchen
to prepare the food. This helped to while away the
hours.

One day I heard some words in English outside the
kitchen window, which opened on a courtyard adjoin-
ing the barracks. My curiosity was aroused. In the
momentary absence of the jailer, I ran to the window
and looked about the yard to see whence the conver-

7S SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

sation proceeded, and, to my joy, found that I was
opposite the house in which lived Commander Goad and
several other English officers. The house had a little
roof-terrace which overlooked the yard. At all haz-
ards, I felt, I must send them a word to say that I was
near them, and let them know all I had suffered at the
hands of the Turks.

" If, some day," I thought, " the Turks bring about
my disappearance, their deed will not rest unknown."

The door into the yard was near the kitchen, and I
noticed it was not locked. It was easy enough to
write a letter, but to get it to them was another mat-
ter. Night and day I concocted plans, but a week
passed without my being any nearer a solution.

Then fortune favored me.

Among the sailors whose duty it was to watch me
was one who was very simple and naive, although —
like all Turks — an inveterate thief. On one occasion
he got into my cell by means of the broken windows
and disappeared with my larder. His lack of intelli-
gence I hoped to turn to my advantage in carrying
out my plan.

Having no writing paper in my room, I took an

IN A DUNGEON 79

envelope, on which I scribbled a few lines to a
French officer, telling him briefly what I had suffered.
Folding the envelope, I enclosed it in another, ad-
dressed to the English officer, and wrapped it in an old
newspaper, taking care to weight the packet with
about a quarter of a pound of bread. To the string
I attached a piece of cardboard, upon which I wrote
in English :

" Open, please."

My object was to throw the parcel onto the terrace
over the quarters of the English officers, hoping that
the label would attract the attention of someone who
would forward the parcel to its destination. My great
difficulty was to get into the courtyard, from which I
could throw the letter. Time was passing, and at any
moment I might be searched.

One night towards the end of October my simple
jailer, who was on duty outside my room, was aston-
ished to find me still awake at midnight. I told him
I was suffering from insomnia, and lit a candle. Then
I offered him a slice of melon, which he swallowed
willingly. A quarter of an hour later I asked him
to take me to the lavatory, and carried with me a

80 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

saucepan containing the melon skins, which I said I
was going to throw out into the yard, our usual dump-
ing place for garbage. To this he agreed most readily,
as it was his own duty to get rid of rubbish. When
we came to the door into the yard I opened it just
enough to pass through, for I did not want him to
see what I was doing, and throwing my bundle on the
terrace, slipped back hastily. I heard the thud of the
parcel as it fell on the terrace. The trick had suc-
ceeded, and I returned, well satisfied, to my quarters,
and went to bed.

In the Hospital

At the beginning of November, Captain Sa far came to
my room one morning and, adopting a confidential and
kindly manner, said to me :

" The Kol-Aghassi, who has a high esteem for you,
and I, have found a way of saving you. The Com-
mandant has left for Constantinople, and we are mas-
ters here. We have thought of sending you to the
hospital, and have come to an understanding with the
medical officer in charge, who is always very good
and kind. He will come and see you here. You must

IN THE HOSPITAL 81

tell him you are ill and have heart trouble, and he
will order you to the hospital, and give you a state-
ment to the effect that your confinement in a damp
and unhealthy room is bad for you. We shall then
allow you to return to the prisoners. When the Com-
mandant returns, the whole affair will be ancient his-
tory, and the matter will be closed."

" But," said I, " how am I to tell the doctor that I
am, ill, when I am not? "

" You will explain to him that you have heart dis-
ease," he replied. " It is a difficult malady to diag-
nose."

I understood later that it was not exactly out of pity
that the hypocrite acted. Inspectors were to visit the
garrison, and the ruffians did not desire that they
should see to what a state I was reduced. Above all,
they feared that they would speak to me.

To make a long story short, the doctor came two
days later and asked me if I were ill. I replied that
there was nothing the matter with me. He felt my
pulse, inquiring if I had any stomach trouble. In
spite of my reply in the negative, he ordered the
Tchaouche to send me the next day to the hospital for

82 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

examination. When the time came, I packed my
trunk, and before leaving, Osman Tchaouche (the
thief) assured me as to the safety of my belongingSj
saying that they would be despatched to the garrison
baggage depot, of which he had the key.

I felt better on breathing the open air, since for a
month I had not been out of my cell. Nevertheless I
was puzzled. This admission to the hospital appeared to
me very suspicious, and my doubts increased when my
companion took a side street which passed behind the
citadel. I was reassured, however, by the sight of the
facade of the hospital in the distance. On arrival I
was taken to the office of the medical officer in charge,
who handed the Tchaouche a paper, and told him to
see that I was admitted immediately. He did not even
examine me, but I had to take the usual bath on enter-
ing. In the ward to which I was conducted I found
some sick prisoners from Kut-el-Amara, and was
pleased to see my British friends again. I soon got
into conversation with them, and learnt that a large'
number of the prisoners had left the garrison for
Angora. An epidemic had broken out among them
and carried off several.

IN THE HOSPITAL 83

Doctor M. Wassilaki, who was attached to the hos-
pital, sounded me, and declared that I had a strong
constitution and was quite well, although weak.
Shortly afterwards the principal medical officer, Dr.
Mustapha Loutfi, arrived, and instructed the stewards^
to place me in another room. There, to my surprise,
I found a master mechanic from the French submarine
" Turquoise," who, nine months before, had left Afion-
Kara-Hissar with the other French prisoners for
Bozanti, where they were to be employed in the con-
struction of the Taurus tunnel. We greeted one
another warmly, and he recounted his terrible experi-
ences.

After months of imprisonment at Adana he had been
sent to Afion-Kara-Hissar, where a few days after his
arrival Mazloum had given him work entirely beyond
the strength of any ordinary man : namely, to carry on
his shoulders blocks of stone weighing from sixty to
eighty pounds apiece all day long. I told him what
I had undergone myself, and he was most indignant.

The senior medical man now wished to separate me
from the prisoners, and so ordered me to be sent to a
room in which were Turks only. One day, while I was

84 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

leaning out of the window, I saw four prisoners carry-
ing to the cemetery one of their comrades who had
just died. They recognized me and saluted miC quite
affectionately. One of them was an Irish volunteer
fifty years of age, named Walsh, the father of five
children. He was very devoted to me, and seeing me
so changed, tears came to his eyes, and he turned his
head away.

I had been about a week at the hospital, when the
doctor in charge told me that I needed to be in the
open.

" I am cured now. Doctor," I said. " Why do you
not give me the report about which Captain Safar
spoke?"

" Not yet," he replied, " you must be patient and
wait some days."

" But, Doctor," said I, " that will be too late. Com-
mandant Mazloum will have returned and the report
will have no efiFect. You know how cruel and despotic
he is."

** You need have no fear," was the reply. " He can-
not go against the report. It is beyond his power."

On the following day I was transferred to another

IN THE HOSPITAL 85

building where the second in command was a Turkish
dental surgeon named Ali-Riza. I was consigned to
an isolated room, the shutters of which the dentist
himself came and nailed up. Being personally respon-
sible for my safe keeping, he was going to make sure
that I should not escape.

My stay here lasted- five days, during which time I
saw the dentist attending to the wounds of the sol-
diers every morning, all the while uttering gross in-
sults. The head steward, a Turkish corporal, was
exceedingly kind to ime. The doctor prescribed cer-
tain tonics, which I accepted with a good deal of dis-
trust.

Three days after my arrival in the new ward, I asked
the chief steward to tell the doctor that I should like
to see him. He came in the afternoon, gave me two
letters from home, and asked me what I wanted.

" I have had enough of this," I exclaimed. " I was
promised that I should be kept only a week in the hos-
pital, and here we are at the tenth day."

The doctor, very much taken aback, said that this
was his business, not mine, and I began to doubt
Safar's sincerity.

86 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

Finally, I heard that Mazloum had returned, and all
my hope of deliverance faded away, for I could expect
no good from that tyrant. Three days later, when I
least expected it, the order came for me to be dis-
charged from hospital. The Kol-Aghassi sent for me,
and I was taken from the hospital to the Command-
ant's office. At first I thought that I was going to be
set at liberty and sent back to the prisoners, as Safar
had promised, but it was Safar himself who gave the
order to a soldier to take me to the barracks, where I
was to be shut up. Deceived once again, I set out for
the prison.

On arriving at the door of the building, I noticed
Captain White in front of his own house. We saluted
one another, and he did not take his eyes ofif me until
I entered the barracks. Here I was imprisoned again
in the black room I knew so well.

Third Degree

We were only at the end of the first act of the
drama. The second was about to commence. Hardly
had I laid down to rest in the evening, when Osman

THIRD DEGREE ^7

Tchaouche came to say that the Commandant had
given orders that I was not to be allowed to sleep that
night.

"Get up," he cried, instructing the jailer not to
allow me to go to bed again. I obeyed, and remained
standing until morning. Nor was I permitted to sleep
during the day. This barbarous régime made me
anxious. I was to have been set at liberty, yet here
they were beginning to torture me more than ever. I
could not understand the mystery.

Next evening at about nine o'clock the Tchaouche
came to inform me that the Commandant was asking
for me, and took me to the courtyard of the church,
where the latter's office was situated. In the vestibule
I noticed several prisoners, who looked at me with
pity. I entered the room in which the Stafï of the
Command was assembled. It was composed of
Mazloum, Safar, Kol-Aghassi Ahmed, the lieutenant,
Nebzet and another interpreter named Dervish. These
I saluted. Mazloum fixed his eyes on me and smiled
sarcastically. Then Captain Safar remarked ironic-
ally:

88 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

" Guetchmich ôla Papas effendi, rahat oldunuzmi ? " ^

By this he meant to indicate jocularly that the farce
of sending me to the hospital under pretence of set-
ting me at liberty had been carried out satisfactorily.

Mazloum still looked at me in a threatening way.
Then the fanatical Unionist cried out:

" So he is still alive, this dog! "

" Nebzet pointed to a chair and asked me to sit
down. Distrustful of his politeness, I hesitated.
Mazloum flew into a rage and shouted:

" Very well, stand then ! Valahi, seni yakadja-
yem!"8

Pulling my letter to the French Commandant from
his pocket, he read me a more or less accurate transla-
tion in Turkish.

After asking me for my Christian name, surname,
those of my father and mother, when I had left my
country, how I got to Constantinople, and thence to
Afion-Kara-Hissar and so on, he dissected my letter
sentence by sentence, to the French Naval officer.
Then began a long series of questions.

'"Congratulations, Reverend Father, are you quite well
again ? "
®"I should like to burn you, you wretch!"

THIRD DEGREE 89

"Who is this Commandant X to whom you

write ? "

" He is a French officer, — a prisoner whom you
know."

"Why do you call him 'Commandant?' Do you
mean that he is in command here? He is only a cap-
tain of a ship."®

" In French, they call him * Commandant.' "

" Then why do you address him as your ' dear ' Com-
mandant?" asked Mazolum.

" I use the word ' dear " because one can address in
this way anyone with whom one has lived on friendly
terms."

Meanwhile a Turkish lieutenant, who acted as clerk,
took down the questions and my answers in writing
He asked me if I knew how to write Turkish. On my
replying in the affirmative, I was handed a sheet of

° It is necessary that these words should be left in the original
French of the letter. The word, " Commandant," in that lan-
guage, as is well known, bears a double significance in English
in which it may mean " Commandant," e. g., of a Prisoners of
War Camp, or Captain (also Commander) as applied to a Naval
officer. On this two-fold meaning rests the real and pre-
tended confusion made by Mazloum and his subsequent charge
against the author. It is, therefore, manifestly impossible to
translate the word, and use one or other equivalent, since to so
do would be to render the story unintelligible.

90 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

paper and a pen, after which I wrote the answers
myself.

" Why do you eulogize France and show such inter-
est in French prisoners, seeing that you are an Otto-
man subject? The French are at the present moment
the enemies of Turkey. The matter is the more seri-
ous in that you are a Turkish official of this garrison
and are paid by the Ottoman Government."

** I spoke in praise of France because it is the coun-
try to which I owe my education. Naturally I am
grateful to France for this. I interest myself in the
prisoners of France, for it is precisely to do so that
the Government has sent me here.''

Mazloum and Safar expressed their opinions to one
another and offered reciprocal suggestions as to how
best to form their questions.

" Where are the notes for which you asked in your
letter?"

" All he gave me was a word of information regard-
ing the death of a non-commissioned officer who died
before I came to the camp."

" Where is the note ? "

" I have destroyed it."

THIRD DEGREE 91

" You were living with Langlois^*' and the others,"
added Mazloum. '' You have got to tell me what they
wrote and what they said."

" I do not know what Langlois and the other pris-
oners wrote," I replied. " That was no business of
mine."

Mazloum jumped up, and standing in front of me,
shouted angrily:

" Hand me the list Langlois gave you, also the
French Commandant's notes. If you do not give them
to me I shall kill you."

** Langlois gave me nothing, and I can only repeat
that the French Commandant gave me nothing more
than some simple information about the death of a
non-commissioned officer. The note I have destroyed."

Mazloum rushed at me in a threatening way, but
the Kol-Aghassi held him.

" Take him back to prison," he shouted, " and see
that he does not sleep."

Back I returned to my cell, worn out, the jailer
strictly enforcing his orders not to let me close my

^° A French soldier who, understanding Turkish, acted as an
interpreter. He secured many favors for the prisoners owing
to his knowledge of the language.

92 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

eyes. Day came, and to some extent drove away the
heaviness, but I developed a violent toothache and suf-
fered most horribly.

At nine o'clock that evening I was brought anew
before my prosecutor, but on my first negative reply, he
sent me back to my cell, with the usual order that I was
to have no sleep. One well-disposed sentry, however,
allowed me to rest a little, and in this way I obtained
two hours' sleep, only to be awakened by the next guard
to await the coming of daylight.

Next day I felt a little better. Towards nine o'clock
Osman Tchaouche came with the garrison marangos,^^
a creature of Captain Safar's, whose habit it was to
steal planks from the houses of the deported Christians.
This unpleasant person had great influence with his
chiefs, whom he was accustomed to treat in a very
familiar manner. He had come to take me to the
Commandant's office, where the interrogation was to
be resumed. As soon as we were in the street the
marangos struck me as hard as he could with his fists,
saying:

" Give up the notes, you pig of a priest ! Say what

Marangos," i. e., " carpenter'.'

THIRD DEGREE 93

you saw written, and the whole affair will be done
with."

When I nearly fell because of the blows, my tor-
mentor roared with laughter.

The room where I was questioned reeked of drink.
Mazloum was almost intoxicated, and his breath, when
he spoke, smelt strongly of alcohol. As soon as I
entered the tyrant snarled at me:

" If you do not speak to-day, dog, I shall crush
you."

Cracking jokes, meanwhile, Osman Tchaouche and
Nebzet stood near me and ordered me to speak, the
last-named scoundrel, in particular, displaying great
zeal. He even went so far as to spit in my face.

Unable to drag anything further from me, the Com-
mandant sent me back with the customary insults, and
the usual order that I was not to be allowed to sleep.
The marangos and Osman accompanied me again as
far as my prison, behaving in the street like savages.
I was at the end of my strength. My compulsory
sleeplessness caused me indescribable suffering. My
nerves were utterly upset, and I believed I was losing

94 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

my reason. The barbarians, I was sure, were going to
kill me.

Next day my eyes were so weak I could hardly dis-
tinguish the soldiers who passed before the window.
Seated on a bench, I awaited in patience the end of
my sufïerings.

Before mid-day Osman Tchaouche came, gathered
his men in the adjoining room, and addressed them in
a low tone of voice. He seemed to be speaking of me,
and I thought I caught the words " priest," " treason,"
" prisoners," " punishment," and *' insecurity of the
country." He advised them to clean their rifles, and
I heard the click of the bolts of their Mausers as each
man took his weapon and cfèaned it, as though about
to prepare for an attack. In the afternoon the same
sounds were repeated. Osman Tchaouche came again,
gave some orders, and left.

Shortly afterwards, the sailors assembled in the cor-
ridor and, rifle in hand, fell in outside my room, where
the Tchaouche inspected them. The two or three men
who had been with me from the beginning were sent
away lest they should be tempted to assist me to

THIRD DEGREE 95

escape. Others arrived soon after to take their places.
I noticed that they were watching me narrowly.

One of them locked the garden gate, the turning of
the key being audible in my cell. I felt that my last
hour had come ! It was of me the Tchaouche had
spoken to his men ! He had told them that I was a
traitor, and, as such, was to be punished. I was to
be shot!

Yet, convinced as I was of the approach of death, I
did not dread it. I resigned myself to it, and even felt
that it was the end of my sufferings. " At least," I
thought, " I die an innocent man." The only thing that
saddened me was the thought of my relatives and their
pain when they should learn of my tragic fate.

Towards evening, a sailor came to the window and
said a few sympathetic words to me, which increased
and strengthened my presentiment of coming death.
A moment later another man passed through the cor-
ridor, a large sheet of paper in his hand.

" This is the inscription which is to be hung round my
neck when I am executed," I said to myself.

I felt full of courage, and I was going almost joy-
fully to death. I said my prayers in preparation.

96 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

offering up my life to God as a sacrifice for my nation
and my kindred. I walked up and down my room in
a kind of exaltation, impatient for the coming of my
last moments on earth. I was prepared to drink the
chalice to the dregs.

Evening came, and I awaited my last summons.
About half past eight the petty officer arrived and
ordered me to go to the Commandant. On the way I
passed the time in prayer. Osman Tchaouche asked
me what I was doing.

" As I am about to die," I said, " I am preparing for
death."

My words caused the hypocrite to sigh sadly, and
he pretended to weep. After all, he was a Turk!

We reached the entrance to the camp, and I entered
and took my stand before the tribunal, ready to hear
my death sentence. The Commandant, surrounded by
his staff, was seated at a table.

"Well," he said, "are you going to speak to-day?"

" I have nothing new to add," I answered, " but
before I die I wish to ask you a favor, and hope that
you will grant it."

" Speak," he ordered.

THIRD DEGREE 97

" I beg you to allow me to see my colleague, Father
Moussoullou, for the last time, so that I may carry
out my religious duties before I die. I should also
like to make my will/'

'' You die ! " cried the Commandant. " Why you
are capable of making the Devil and all his angels die
before turning up your toes. As for your colleague,
he also is in prison. The Greek priest of the town is
likewise under lock and key, so that it is impossible to
bring you a priest. As for your will, you may make
that."

Nebzet, the interpreter, took up his pen and wrote
down what I dictated to him, making fun of me the
while. When it was finished. Captain Safar said:

'' Since you are giving something to everybody, why
do you not leave a legacy to the Red Crescent as well?
Oh, I understand," he added, '' it is a Turkish institu-
tion, so it will not interest you."

" Well," I said, " here is my last pound. You can give
it to the Red Crescent."

Safar pocketed the money.

I had finished and signed my will, when the Com-
mandant suddenly left the court. I noticed that those

98 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

who remained changed both in word and manner
towards me, and the Kol-Aghassi, touched by pity,
told the Heutenant to give me a cigarette.

" It is all over," he said to me ; " you will be able to-
sleep to-night/'

I could not believe my ears ! I was being deceived
again, and this was doubtless a last word of consola-
tion which the Kol-Aghassi, always friendly, wished
to give me. Or did he refer to the everlasting sleep
of death?

At length the Tchaouche, who had been present,
took me back to my prison, asking me on the way to
bequeath him something. He accompanied me to my
cell, and, opening my trunk, I gave him some articles,
but he was not satisfied, and wanted my overcoat and
rug as well. I refused. To my disgust, I found that
most of my things had been stolen.

I was very tired and tried to sleep, but terrible
thoughts came to my mind, and I pictured the moment
when they would come during the night to take me
out and shoot me.

Eventually I fell into a sound sleep. When I awoke
next day much of my pain due to insomnia and my men-

THIRD DEGREE 99

tal torture had vanished. My first action was to reopen
my trunk to see what things were missing. I found that
all my linen, my watch, clothes and many other things
had disappeared, and I suspected Osman Tchaouche of
the theft since it was he who had the key of the store
room. On being informed of this, he came himself in all
astonishment to ask me what was missing. I insisted
particularly on the return of the linen, but it was
useless. A petty officer told me next day that he had
seen Osman with a night-shirt of mine.

The same day a sailor told me in confidence that I
was to leave for Constantinople. A Canoun-Tchaouche,^^
who had just arrived from the capital, in passing my cell,
said to me :

" I was to have taken you, * Papas,'^^ to Constanti-
nople, but I have just been given other work, so prob-
ably you will be taken there by someone else."

The information was quite accurate. My transfer
had been decided upon. In making my preparations,
the first thing which occurred to me was to send word
to the prisoners, that they might find a means of advis-

" Sergeant of Military Police — M. P.
13 Priest.

100 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

ing the Apostolic Delegation at Constantinople of my
departure, and so secure me its protection. I there-
fore wrote a letter to this effect to Commander Goad
and another to the French Commandant, asking them
to take the necessary steps to communicate with Mgr.
Dolci, Apostolic Delegate to the Holy See at Constan-
tinople. The former I charged particularly with
notifying the prisoners of certain matters concerning
my relations with them.

I managed to throw these letters, as before, from the
courtyard onto the terrace of the English officers'
prison, and hurried back to my cell. Being no longer
so strictly guarded, next day I washed my clothes in
the yard. I was seen from a window by the English
officers, one of whom came out for a stroll on the
terrace with a cigarette in his hand. Making me a
sign to come nearer, he threw down the cigarette,
which I immediately picked up.

Returning hastily to my prison, I sat down in a
corner and opened it. I found that it contained a
letter from Commander Goad, promising to do what
I had asked, and informing me that the Apostolic
Delegate had already been warned of my approaching

COURTMARTIALLED 101

departure. Expressing his regrets at hearing of my
misfortunes, and wishing me better luck, he conveyed
to me the thanks of all the prisoners. Wishing to
keep this last souvenir of the prisoners, I hid it, but on
second thought, in view of the danger to my friends
were I to be searched, I decided to destroy it.

Two days later, towards the end of November, being
told that I was to leave early next morning, I asked
several times to see Captain Safar before setting out,
in order that I might report the theft of my clothes and
other belongings. Osman Tchaouche divined my
thoughts and prevented an interview. Late at night
the Captain came to the barracks, however, to ask me
if I were ready to start. I told him of the theft and
of my suspicions in regard to Osman Tchaouche. The
latter being, however, an accomplice of his, he took
no steps in the matter.

Courtmartialled

At 2 a. m. next morning I left the barracks, which
had been my prison for nearly two months, crossing
the town by streets other than the main thorough-
fares. At the station I was surprised to hear that the

102 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

train did not leave until nine. Mazloum had given me
one more final expression of good will, and, as he did
not wish me to pass in daylight before the English
officers' quarters, had deprived me of the pleasure of
seeing them for the last time. The train left eventu-
ally at midday. Hassan Tchaouche was my com-
panion, and throughout the journey was exceedingly
kind to me, as was, indeed, in even greater degree, a
soldier named Bairam. I invited them both to take
their meals at my expense.

On arrival at Ismid, I asked the kindly soldier to
have tea in the restaurant, and, convinced of his sin-
cerity, requested him to be so good as to forward, on
our arrival at Constantinople, a few words I should
give him for the Chaldean Vicar General. He con-
sented, and wrote in his notebook the address I dic-
tated. I then scribbled a few lines to Mgr. Bajari,
telling him of my coming to Constantinople, that I
was to be courtmartialed there, and begging him to
do all he could to save me. The soldier took the letter,
advising me not to mention the matter to his com-
panion. I learnt later that he kept his promise.

Next day, — Tuesday, November the 28th, to be pre-

COURTMARTIALLED 103

cise, — we arrived at Haidar Pasha. I was taken by
my guards to the War Office, and brought to the
quarters of the Military Commandant, whence I was
transferred to a large red building adjacent. A supe-
rior officer remarked to me :

" Well, you have arrived safe and sound," and
ordered me to be taken through a long corridor to a
large underground hall, full of tiers of beds for the
use of the Turkish soldiers who lived like rats in this
kind of cellar. From this place I was taken to a
bureau where some non-commissioned officers searched
me carefully, as if I had just been newly arrested, a
rather stupid proceeding, I thought, considering I had
passed two months in prison. The senior Non-Com-
missioned Officer seemed to me an absolute fanatic.
As he carefully gathered together any scraps of paper
found upon me, he seemed to go out of his way to find
at pretext for worrying me.

A sergeant took me next to a room lighted by elec-
tricity, where I was to wait my time. A big peasant
soldier, who seemed devoid of malice, was charged
with the duty of bringing my meals. He also swept

104 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

the room. All things considered, I was very much
better installed in the Seraskerat^* than at Afion-Kara-
Hissar.

Next day the governor of the prison, Captain Ismail
Hakki, came to see me. He spoke very nicely to me,
and took me to a room w^here I found my trunk,
which had been opened and inspected. The Captain,
without reading them, took possession of certain let-
ters which I had received through the Red Crescent
from France, written by relatives, asking for news of
certain soldiers, most of whom had fallen in the fight-
ing at the Dardanelles.

Two days after my arrival at my new prison the
Captain came to inform me that a certain Mr. Victor
VarthaHty, who had been sent by the Apostolic Dele-
gation, wished to see me. After asking me a number
of questions, his nephew asked me whether I was in
need of food or money. I told him that I had no
change of linen, and he brought me some.

A week passed, and then I was summoned to appear
before the court martial, and was examined once more.
In the course of the sitting I was asked again whence

14 War Ofiice.

COURTMARTIALLED 105

I came, where I was going, etc. My letter to the
French Commandant seemed to be at the bottom of
the whole matter, although the judges did not appear
to attach great importance to it. After an hour's
examination I was dismissed.

Some days later I was recalled and questioned anew.
At the end of the interview one of the judges asked
me for news of an English Captain named Does. He
spoke almost cordially, and offered me a cigarette,
which I declined. Then, speaking of a certain Captain
Roeckel, he said:

" Captain Roeckel is dead."

Meanwhile he fixed his eyes upon me to see what
impression the news would make. Taking him at his
word, I was deeply pained to hear of the death of this
brave friend of mine. Later I learned that Captain
Roeckel was in perfect health. It was merely a trick.

Remaining alone with my interrogator, who seemed
to me to be an Arab, in that he spoke Arabic per-
fectly, I asked him what he thought of the papers
relating to my case.

" You need not worry," he said, " there is nothing

106 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

serious in them. Your affair is a mere bubble, which
will disappear at the first puff of wind."

The sitting was then adjourned.

On December 27, Mgr. Bajari had the courage to
come and pay me a visit in prison, and brought me
good news of my brother, who was now in Constanti-
nople, and about whose fate I had been anxious. He
was astonished to find me so calm, for certain evil-
minded persons had spread a rumor in the town that
my case was serious and that I was to be executed.
Some days later he visited me again, bringing with
him my brother, who was much upset at seeing me
in prison, and who gave me news of our family and
some money.

I had to wait until the beginning of February before
I appeared again before the court martial. In the
meantime I was allowed to leave my room, and so,
after three months of solitary confinement, had the
happiness of finding myself once more among my fel-
lowmen and of talking with them. My companions were
Christian prisoners, all educated men, who for the most
part had already been acquitted by the tribunal, but
out of malice had not been set at liberty. In fact, only

COURTMARTIALLED 107

by heavy bribes had they been able to get themselves
transferred to a large room, which was clean and well
ventilated. I was also to meet among them a fellow
citizen of Urfa, Dr. Mirza, who during his exile at
Angora had been told off to look after the prisoners of
war in the camps. Thus the rigors of prison life were
much softened for me, and I hoped for a happy end-
ing to my weary martyrdom.

Wishing to have some books one day, I asked a
sentry, who had been very well disposed towards me
up to that time, to get me an English grammar. He
consented, and I indicated a shop where he could pur-
chase it, and gave him the money, as well as some-
thing for himself. The man treacherously informed
the Commandant, who reprimanded me, leaving the
sentry, however, the gratuity and the rest of the
money, a typically Turkish action.

My fellow prisoners gave me an account of the
atrocities to which they had been subjected at the
hands of the police. One of them, Mr. Samuel, of
Van, a professor at Robert College, Constantinople,
after receiving hundreds of blows with a stick, had
been hung up on a wall, head downwards. Another,

108 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

M. Ohannes, a proprietor of a tailoring establishment
in Pera, had been arrested because he had a brother
who had written and published works against the poli-
tics of the Unionist party. M. Chawache, a journal-
ist, had been tortured to such a degree that he threw
himself from his window into the street to kill him-
self, breaking his leg. Yet another victim had been
obHged, under threat of being beaten, to remain
standing motionless, day and night, for several days.

I was surprised to find in the prison the three Brit-
ish Naval officers, Messrs. Stocker, Cochrane and
another, who escaped from the concentration camp at
Afion-Kara-Hissar ten months before, only to be
retaken a week later. I greeted them as they passed
my barred window, asking after their health. They
were even more surprised at finding me a prisoner.

On the 8th of February I was called before the
tribunal, over which presided a cavalry general, as-
sisted by the Attorney-General and about ten officers.
The secretary was ordered by the President to read
my now famous letter, and translated it into Turkish.
He did this so badly that I was obliged to stop him
several times and correct him. Finally, feeling

COURTMARTIALLED 109

insulted, he obstinately upheld his own version. Al-
though it was a risky thing to do, I arose, and going
up to him, snatched the letter and continued the
translation myself; an action which caused the judges
to look at me with some surprise.

The chief accusation brought against me was my
love for France ! I defended myself desperately in
Turkish, and, when at a loss for a word, broke into
Arabic and French. When I had finished, the General,
who was wild with rage, shouted :

*' Well, then, if you are so indebted to the France
you love so much, why did you remain in Turkey?
Why did you accept service with her, with that Tur-
key which, having confidence in you, allowed you to
go to the camp of the Anglo-French prisoners? You
had only to go and take up your residence in France,
and our country would have nurtured one less traitor
in her bosom."

Finally, the Attorney-General himself taking up my
defense, pointed out that the letter was addressed to a
prisoner, and one actually in the same camp ; that
one cannot order people to have sentiments of any
particular kind, since every man has the right to think

110 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

for himself, and that I did not incur punishment for
so doing. After a short homily, which I did not quite
catch, the General requested me to leave.

Free

I returned to prison, and next day Captain Ismail
Hakki came to announce my acquittal. It only re-
mained to consult Enver Pasha as to where I was to
go, since as a military Chaplain, I came under the
War Office.

On February the 10th, a Sunday, the sergeant told
me that I was to prepare to leave. I was free, and
could go where I willed.

:|e 3)c ^ ^ * 9te 3|e

Thus closed my hundred and thirty days of prison
life. As I passed through the streets of Constanti-
nople, I felt as if I were in a dream. I seemed to be
awaking once more to life as from a terrible night-
mare. I took a carriage to the Chaldean Patriarchate,
where I met once more friends and colleagues, who
were happy to know that I was at last free from the
clutches of the cruel wretches who had subjected me
to so long a martyrdom.

FREE 111

It was not until two days before my liberation that
my mother at Aleppo learned that I had been impris-
oned. Her anxiety was not of long duration, for two
days later she received my telegram saying that I had
been freed.

Notwithstanding the ease of my new life, I could not
free my mind from the thought of the sufferings of the
prisoners of war, and sought to convey information to
responsible quarters, but fearing Turkish espionage,
dared not approach the representatives of Britain and
France.^^ Finally, I found a means of seeing a Mr.
Sikes and a Dr. McLean, who were interested in the
EngHsh, as was also a Dr. Frew, the head of the Angli-
can Church in Constantinople. Further, M. Savoye, a
friend of mine, formerly a director of the Ottoman Bank
at Urfa, and an old and valued friend, gave an afternoon
tea at which I found M. Dugardier, the French Consul
General, arid M. Beauduy. I told them everything, and
begged them to intervene with the Turkish authorities by
means of a protest through the American Embassy, which
was responsible at that time for the interests of the

1^ English and French affairs were managed at the American
Embassy subsequent to their entry into the war, after which
Holland took charge of the affairs of all three.

112 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

Entente in Turkey. Thus they might save the poor
prisoners who were liable to perish from cold, lack of
care, and want of food. I also asked them to increase
the sum of money which they sent to the prisoners,
and which was their only means of support.

In conclusion, I desire to convey my thanks to the
Apostolic Delegate, Archbishop Dolci; to my Uear
friend Latif Bey, a Chaldean member of the Council at
the Court of Appeals in Constantinople ; to Daoud
Bey Youssoufani, former Chaldean Deputy of Mosul ;
all of whom intervened on my behalf, and brought influ-
ence to bear on their friends in order that I might be set
at liberty.

CHAPTER V

My Successor's Experience

When I left the Prison Camp at Afion-Kara-Hissar,
two German priests were appointed as Chaplains. They
were Father Dangelmonier of the Congregation of St.
Francis de Sales and Dr. Engert of the Dellinges Acad-
emy in Bavaria. They arrived early in June, 1917.

Although allowed considerably more latitude than I,
they had so much difficulty with the Turkish authorities
that after three months they were so worn out that they
requested to return to Constantinople.

It was there in Constantinople that I talked with
Father Dangelmonier on September the fourth, 191/.

Having been allowed considerable liberty, he took long
trips into the country about Mardin and Diarbekir, and
was able to tell me of existing conditions in that region.
He had seen the terrible state of convoys of Christians
deported into the desert, and testified that the persecu-

114 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

" Half of the prisoners have been killed by the ill-
treatment inflicted by the Turks," he said, " and if the
war lasts another two years, not one will live."

I then asked him why the German Government, which,
having many officers there, could not be ignorant of the
savagery and brutality of the Turk, did not intervene.

" Because of its silence," I told him frankly, " it is
responsible for all that happens."

" You are right," he admitted. " I, myself, cannot
understand its apathy, and feel so indignant about it that
I am almost ashamed to call myself a German. The Ger-
mans could not prevent a general rising on the part of
the people, but this systematic and continued persecution
they could have checked. When I return to Germany, I
shall raise my voice on behalf of these unhappy Chris-
tians."

At my request, he willingly gave me a short report of
all he knew about the condition of the Christians in
Turkey.

Father Dangelmonier's Testimony

During this terrible world war, every nation has suf-
fered more or less. There is one nation, however, or
rather one race, which has been peculiarly afflicted, and

FATHER DANGELMONIER's TESTIMONY 115

whose very existence as a racial unit has been threat-
ened. I refer to the Christians of the Orient. Let us
not here discuss individual responsibility for their mar-
tyrdom, but merely, in a few words, speak of what they
have suffered, and what their future may be.

By " Christians of the Orient " we mean all the Cath-
olic and " Orthodox " followers of Christ in European
Turkey, together with those who are scattered through-
out Anatolia, Syria, Armenia and Mesopotamia. Before
the war the Christians in the East, inclusive of the
Greeks, numbered over three millions. During the last
two years two millions of these have been massacred by
the Turks, or have perished in misery during deporta-
tion. Most of the survivors are condemned to dire want,
and many, if not assisted, will die during the coming
winter.

Except in Constantinople, Aleppo and a few other lo-
calities which were spared, the persecution commenced
by the deportation of the rich and influential male Chris-
tians from the centers where they lived. Escorted by
soldiers and police, they were taken to out-of-the-way
spots and all put to death. This was the procedure fol-
lowed in the towns.

116 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

In the distant villages, the Kurdish tribes could be relied
upon to assist. They burnt everything and massacred all
but those women and children whom they wished to keep
for their own use.

Every rich and influential Christian man having been
done away with, an order came from Constantinople
not to molest the families of the Syrians, Jacobites and
Chaldeans. This order, alas, which was only partly
obeyed even in the cities, came too late for the country
districts, where almost the whole Christian population
had already been put to death.

One may say, in the districts where the massacres t^ok
place, there remain of the Gregorians and Armenians
only some thousands, mostly widows and orphans. This
means that more than a million have disappeared. The
Chaldean Catholics have lost their three Bishops^ and
two-thirds of their people; the Nestorians, more than
one hundred thousand men and the greater part of their
Bishops, and the Syrians all their moneyed men and
those of influence. Having given the authorities an
enormous sum, the Jacobites at Mardin were not

1 The Chaldean Catholics, as a matter of fact, lost five
il^i^shpps iJirough the persecution of the Turks.

FATHER DANGELMONIER'S TESTIMONY 117

molested, but in the villages over eighty thousand of their
community were slain by the Kurds.

In short, it is safe to say that two million Christians
have been wiped out in the space of two years, for the
deportations took place throughout the years 1915 and
1916, and even during 1917 more than forty thousand
have been done to death.

One must add to these the large number of Christian
women, chiefly the more beautiful, held in Turkish
harems. Protestants likewise have lost most of their
followers. They have, however, already organized
numerous orphanages in order to save the children who
have survived the massacres.

It would require several hundred pages to recount the
innumerable cruelties perpetrated at the expense of these
victims. They form a special chapter in the history of
the war. Even in the old days of the barbarians such
acts of cruelty were not committed. One example will
suffice.

.- A priest at Mardin was thrown into prison, where,
despite his sixty-two years, he received more than three
hundred blows with a stick. His white beard was torn
out, and for the whole of one night he was hung up to

118 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

nails by a cord stretched out in the form of a cross.
Some days later he was given his liberty by an order
from Constantinople. I heard these horrible details from
the priest himself.

At present there remain thousands of widows and
orphans who have escaped by a miracle from the claws
of the Turks and Kurds, and who are now returning to
take refuge among their Christian brethren. Morally
and materially, they are in a terrible condition. There
are still young Christian women being violated by Kurds
and Arabs and sold to the highest bidder in the bazaars
as if they were cattle. And hundreds of Chaldean and
Syrian families are utterly without means of support.

The Turkish army has carried ofï all reserves of food,
and famine has begun to make itself felt among the
Arabs and Kurds, who, in consequence, are preying upon
unfortunate Christians, Without shelter, food or father-
land, the poor, down-trodden victims are taking refuge
in the towns, where they will starve to death.

In Diarbeker, Mardin and other regions, Turkish offi-
cers nightly send their orderlies to Christian houses to
carry ofï victims for their debauches. Right and justice
no longer exist, as far as Christians are concerned. They

THE FUTURE 119

are outlaws in Turkey, and anyone may kill them or
bring about their disappearance without a single voice
being raised on their behalf. This is the present sad
situation of the Christians in the Orient, of the truth of
which thousands of proofs can be furnished.

The Future

The future is no light matter for the Christians.
Unless they obtain liberty to live, and bread to eat, they
will all die of hunger and cold in those regions through
which the murderers have passed. The Turks do what-
ever they wish with them. Quite lately they have con-
fiscated the whole corn harvest, so that each person must
ask his bread from the Turkish Commandant. The lat-
ter chases away the petitioner as soon as he discovers
that he is a Christian, or, at best, makes him pay dearly
for the morsel thrown to him, as to a dog.

A Bishop of Mardin said recently :

" In my town there are more than five thousand
widows and orphans whom I have to feed as best I can.
If assistance does not arrive for the winter, four thou-
sand of the poor creatures will be dead next year. It is

120 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

impossible for human beings to live on roots, especially
after having undergone so great a martyrdom."

What is the duty of Christians enjoying the inestima-
ble boon of liberty? Surely it is to give alms to these
widows and orphans of the East, whose martyred parents
have gone to Heaven ! There is still time to save thou-
sands of them. It only means organizing a system oi
relief as quickly as possible. Let us hope that the
Government of Turkey will be forced to take pity upon
these unhappy people and let them live. And let us
hope, above all, that Europe will not delay in sending
them help."

His Beatitude the Chaldean, Patriarch of Babylon

PART II

CHAPTER I

Depositions Concerning the Massacres at Sairt

In the month of October, 1917, I was preparing to
leave Constantinople for Aleppo, to see my relatives
whom I had left two years before, when Théophile and
Philippe, two Chaldeans of Sairt, came to see me. They
informed me that they had a sister, Djalila, who had
been deported from Sairt and who was at that moment
at Aleppo. Knowing that I intended to go there, they
placed a sum of money in my hands, and asked me to
give it to Djalila, and to assist her to return to Constan-
tinople.

My first care on arriving at Aleppo was to call on
Madame Djalila and hand her the money sent by her
brothers, of whom I gave her news. I then made ar-
rangements to bring her to Constantinople with me, but
the project fell through, the war being then at its
height, and Madame Djalila being without "nefoustes-
keressi " (papers of identity).

I asked her to give me the details of her long martyr-
dom. The following is the complete story she gave me

122 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

of her wanderings, and of the unheard-of sufferings to
which she was subjected. The recital so vividly recalled
her sufferings — for she had escaped death almost
miraculously — that she sobbed bitterly.

The Deposition of Madame Djalila

" We learnt one day that my Uncle Fathalla and his
brother George had been arrested at Sairt by order of
the Government.^

This was at the beginning of June, 1915. We sought
anxiously for the reason of their arrest, which so far
as we could judge from what had already happened,
seemed to us quite arbitrary. Obtaining nothing, definite
from the officials, we questioned a Chaldean medical man
named Djerdjess, who was on the Stafif of the Military

*Djeudet Bey, Military Governor of Van, had been expelled
towards the end of May by the Russians and the Armenians
and Assyro-Chaldeans of Hakkari, and fled towards the south,
crossing the river Bohtan. Entering Sairt with 8,000 soldiers
whom, he himself called " The Butchers' Battalion " (Kassab
Tabouri), he gave orders for the massacre of the Christians.
On 25th of June he laid siege to Bitlis and he exterminated
every single Christian.

The Chaldean diocese of Sairt comprises, exclusive of the
Chaldeans of the town, more than thirty villages, not to count
a large number of other villages inhabited by Assyro-Chaldean
Jacobites, of whose number we are ignorant.

All these prosperous villages were pillaged, looted and burnt,
those who dwelt therein being put to the sword. The following

DEPOSITIONS CONCERNING MASSACRES AT SAIRT 123

Hospital, some distance from the Chaldean quarter Ain-
Salib. My father-in-law, Khawadja Mansour, asked the
doctor if he knew why our relations had been seized.

"Do not worry," Djerdjess replied, '* at present the
Government is in need of reapers and is commandeering
the services of men in every part of the town. Your
relations happen to be among them. A certain number
will be selected : the strongest will be sent to the fields
and the remainder will be sent back to their families."

Knowing the feelings of the Governor towards the
Christian population, the explanation, far from reassur-
ing us, only increased our anxiety. Not daring to leave
our homes, we sought information from certain sure

is an .almost complete list with the number of Chaldean
inhabitants :

Sairt 2,000 Mar-Chmoune 300

Sadagh 2,000 Hartevena 200

Mar-Gourya 1,000 Der-Mar-Yacoub 500

Guedianes 500 Bekend 500

Hadide 1,000 Ain-Dare 200

Redwan 500 Berke 500

Dehok 500 Archkanes 500

Ketmes 1,000 Galwaye 500

Der-Chemch 200 Goredj 500

Piros 1,000 Artoun ( Altahtanie) ... 500

Tentas 500 Der-Mazen 300

Tellimchar 1,500 Derr-Rabban 300

Telnevro 500 Charnakh 200

Benkof 200 Artoun (Alfokanie). .. . 1,000

The above names and figures were given me by Vicar General
Bajari, who belongs to this part of the country.

124 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

sources. We learnt that part of the prisoners had been
housed provisionally in the military hospital, and part
in the barracks.

Realizing that evil might fall upon ourselves and our
relatives at any moment, we lived in a state of unspeak-
able terror. Certain indications as well as our own
forebodings revived our fears. We were quite panic-
stricken and the least thing served to upset our nerves.

We learnt at length, a fortnight before the tragic
events here narrated, that the Kurdish tribes in the neigh-
bourhood of Sairt, the terror of the Christians in these
regions, had attacked the town with the intention of
plundering and massacring the Christians.

The Kurds armed and mounted under the command
of their Aghas (Chiefs) numbered about three hundred.
Part of the band had already entered the town. The
mere intimation of their arrival caused us to lose our
heads. We took it for granted that we should meet the
fate which, as a matter of fact, awaited us. We had
but one thought, that of saving ourselves. Our first
act was to dig as fast as we could hiding places beneath
our houses in which to deposit whatever objects of value
we possessed. We also worked feverishly to provide

DEPOSITIONS CONCERNING MASSACRES AT SAIRT 125

" dug outs " in which to conceal ourselves. These were,
however, quite useless, since we had to do with men
accustomed to pillage and murder. They would have
known where to find us, and in case of doubt would
have set fire to our houses. To our great happiness
news arrived that our Chaldean Archbishop, the Right
Reverend Addai Sheir,- had offered to the Mutessarif
(Governor) a bribe of some five hundred pounds in
gold.^ In return the General sent the Kurds away. For
the moment we were saved, but our mental suffering did
not diminish. The terrifying impression produced by
the armed Kurds remained with us.

Fearing that a hiding place in the house offered no
sure protection, we left it secretly and took refuge with
our friend the Bimbashi (Commandant), who lived
with one of my aunts, and was friendly to the Chris-
tians. My father-in-law, a member of the Administra-
tive Council, remained in the house, stoically awaiting

^The illustrious Archbishop of Sairt; an Oriental scholar well
known in Europe ; Lauréat of the "Académie des Inscriptions et
Belles Lettres " of Paris and author of several historical works.
He has also published numerous studies in the " Revue
Asiatique."

* About $2,500.00 American money.

126 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

the terrible measures which were even then being
prepared.

As nothing happened for some days to justify our
fears, we decided to return home. Immediately contra-
dictory rumours began to be spread throughout the
town. Some said that the Kurds had come back ; others
that the Russians had arrived.

A week later a Government official, Selim Effendi, a
friend of my uncle's and of my father-in-law, chanced
to pass our door. Seeing him from the window, my
father-in-law asked him what was happening.

" The only advice I can give you," he repHed, " is to
remain concealed at home; for it looks as if matters
are coming to a head. The situation is grave."

The Archbishop, like a good shepherd, while keeping
up our courage, put us on our guard and exhorted us
with words of infinite tenderness, to make use of every
possible means to safeguard our lives. He himself was
to be the first to feel the rigours of the barbarous
régime which was to be inaugurated against the Chris-
tians. Police came to his residence and arrested him
by order of the Governor. Only by means of another
bribe to the Governor did he obtain permission to

DEPOSITIONS CONCERNING MASSACRES AT SAIRT 127

remain for the moment where he was, being placed
under strict supervision of several members of the
police force.

The house had two exits, the chief of which was
guarded by the police. As a precaution the Archbishop
had summoned the Agha of Tanze, a village at some
hours' distance from Sairt. The Agha, who was most
friendly to the Christians, advised the prelate to save
himself, and assisted him, disguised as a Kurd, to escape
with some of his men by means of the second door
leading to the Cathedral. My brother. Father Gabriel,
who was the Archbishop's secretary, was asked to leave
with him, but refused.

Osman Agha was not the only one who showed these
humane and friendly feelings towards the Christians.
Another functionary who greatly liked them, was the
Mayor, one Abdul-Rezzak, who even went so far as to
arrange with my father, certain of the political leaders
of the nation and Abdul of Addai, to collect from the
Chaldeans a certain sum of money with the object of
enabling them to save their lives. His friendship for
us brought about his downfall, and he was replaced by
a certain Hami Eiïendi of Sairt, a cruel fanatic, who

128 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

hated the Christians. In him the Governor found an
invaluable colleague in carrying out his bloody and
dreadful work.

During the afternoon of the day following the flight
of the Archbishop about fifty armed Mussulmans of the
town laid siege to our house. They knocked at the door
first, but seeing that no one opened it, attempted to force
it. Failing in this, they began to batter it with blocks
of stone in order to break it open. Mansour, my father-
in-law, went forward to admit the attackers, who, ac-
companied by four of the police, invaded the house, and
commenced to sack and pillage everything. We, women
and children, terrified out of our lives, gathered to-
gether in one room. My brother-in-law, Moussa, and
his cousins Aboud and Behnam, brothers of Naaman
EflFendi, concealed themselves in the attic, which had
but one small opening to the roof. Kerim, my other
brother-in-law, was ill with typhoid fever. Our savage
visitors seeing the sick man, drew their daggers to kill
him. Attracted by Kerim's cries we threw ourselves at
the feet of the murderers, begging them to spare the
poor invalid. No harm was done him, and the band left
the room and went off to sack whatever they could find

DEPOSITIONS CONCERNING MASSACRES AT SAIRT 129

in the house. The poHce arrested my father-in-law,
Mansour, and took him with them.

Fearing to be molested by the invaders, we tried to
get to the roof, taking the sick man with us, but the
brigands who were prowling about all over the house
in search of their prey, seeing a man with us, followed.
Trembling with fright, and believing that this time his
life was really in danger, the sick man fled. A police
sergeant pursued him and killed him with four shots
from his revolver, two of which struck him in the arm
and two in the head. The unfortunate man fell, bathed
in his blood.

Having carried out their fell work, and having sacked
the house, the murderers made ofï. We came down and
discovered that the poor youth was dead. We carried
him out and cried bitterly as we stood in a circle around
his body. Everything having been borne ofï, we had
nothing with which to cover the corpse. Meanwhile
another band came along and banged at our door. My
father-in-law's brother, Hanna, a man of seventy, in
his fear for us, came out of his hiding place and went to
open it. A shot fired through a hole in the door struck
him in the forehead and he fell dead.

130 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

Once more we fled in terror to the terrace roof. The,
door was forced and the murderers, entering the house,
first made for Hanna's body and stripped it of all its
clothes. (Here Madame Walies-Djalila's account was
interrupted by her sobs, and she wept bitterly.)

The Mutessarif (Governor) lived near us, and at the
time he was seated with the notorious Hami Effendi, the
Mayor of the town, at a window which overlooked our
house.* The two men watched impassively all that hap-
pened. Turning our eyes towards them we implored
them to save us, but they remained cold and motionless.
A week later, tired of hearing us weep and cry unceas-
ingly, the Governor came to us and said : " Why do

*We have gathered from eyewitnesses the names of the prin-
cipal butchers who directed the massacres of Sairt and looted
the belongings of the Chaldeans.

Hilmi Bey, Governor of Sairt.

Hamdi Bey, who commanded the Police.

Hami Efifendi, the Mayor.

Ali Efifendi. / n^^^-c

Emin Basri. \ officers.

Fathulla Efifendi.

Hadji Abdi Moussali. ) ]vrerchant«^

Fardo Ibin Ibrahim. \ Merchants.

Aziz Ibin Hadji Omar, a cousin of Fardo.

Molla Kheder.

Molla Elias.

Hadji Ibrahim Hassane.

Hamid Hagha and his four sons.

Hamdi Ibin Hadji Mamad Efifendi and others.

DjALILA

DEPOSITIONS CONCERNING MASSACRES AT SAIRT 131

these people treat you so badly? If they do you any
more harm, send and let me know." With that he left.

The same day, during the afternoon, Hamdi Effendi,
who commanded the police, also came to the house and
asked us :

"What is the matter with you, and what is all this
row about?" ** Can you not see what they have made
us suffer?" we answered. "Oh, well," he replied,
"show me the men you have hidden in the house and
you will be safe. No one will annoy you further." He
then departed.

We lived for a month in this state of anxiety, sub-
sisting on a little food which remained in the bottom of
some jars broken by the murderers ; and especially
thanks to some pieces of gold which we had buried.
The brigand band had found most of the objects we
had buried, but had overlooked the gold.

A water carrier, who had been in our service for sev-
eral years, brought us food to eat from the market.
This we pulled up to the window by means of a rope.
It consisted of cottage cheese, meat and cucumbers. We
had also some fowls. Our chief object was to feed
some forty men whom we kept concealed in a hole

132 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

crowded together, suffocated by the heat. The looters
having taken away even our beds, we all slept together
on the floor. Some friends, Naaman Effendi's sisters,
brought us some mattresses when they discovered our
plight.

All day long bodies of men went from house to house.
To better protect themselves from the wickedness of
these roving bands, women, girls and children gathered
together during the daytime in groups of from fifty to
one hundred. We joined one another by means of the
flat roofs and passed the day in silence, awaiting death
at every moment, all but dead ourselves with fear. At
nightfall when the marauders ceased to roam, we re-
crossed the roof to our own houses and tried to gain
some sleep.

A certain Youssouf, son of Kas Chaya, during this
time had concealed himself in the Chaldean Cathedral.
Driven out by hunger, the unfortunate man left his hid-
ing place one night and came to our house, where his
sister Miriam was. That very night a band of perse-
cutors arrived. We all fled to the roof in terror. Yous-
souf, fearing for his Hfe, hid himself under a mattress.
One of the brigands, who was following us upstairs,

DEPOSITIONS CONCERNING JfiASSACRES AT SAIRT 133

discovered Youssouf. He pulled him from under the
mattress, threatening him with death. Youssouf bravely
made the sign of the cross and cried aloud: "Jesus,
Mary, into your hands I commit my soul." He asked
to see his little nephew, an only son among seven sisters,
kissed him tearfully and bade us farewell.

With us there was also a boy of twelve, called Fard-
jalla, who had escaped death on the first day, and whom
we had hidden with our men. Worn out by the exces-
sive heat he had come out and joined us. He, too, was
seized and began to cry, screaming:

" Oh, they are going to kill me." His sister called out
to him:

" Do not be frightened, dear, you will be happy in
Heaven." The scoundrels then took the two poor
Christian boys outside the house, and shot them before
its very door.

Some days before our deportation, two Chaldeans of
a rich family in the village of Berkep had come to take
refuge at our house, having fled from the fury of the
Kurds who had invaded their village. Seven or eight
soldiers followed them in. They menaced us with their
rifles, crying: " Show us your men."

134 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

After a long search the victims were found and re-
heved of all their money and of a golden cross which
one of them wore around his neck. They were taken
into the middle of the courtyard, where each was shot
through the head and chest. Their bodies lay for two
days in the yard. Finally we notified one of our neigh-
bours, who sent for the municipal authorities. The
latter tied ropes to their feet and dragged them away
like animals, leaving our courtyard covered with blood.

A Chaldean woman named Mariam, who belonged to
the Governor's household, and who was herself mur-
dered later, came to see us and told us that we should
soon be deported. This woman often came to give us
news of the situation.

Before we were taken away, officers and civil police
visited us at frequent intervals, ordering us to show
them our valuables, so that they might know, they said,
what things had been stolen, and thus obtain their re-
turn. They also promised to save us from being de-
ported. Their real object was to discover what we still
had, and to take it from us.

On the eve of our departure a woman named Suzanne,
from the village of Mar-Yacoub, having heard that we

DEPOSITIONS CONCERNING MASSACRES AT SAIRT 135

had had some men concealed in the house, brought us
her son. He had been hidden in my father's house and
had escaped when the village of Mar-Yacoub had been
sacked, and its Chaldean inhabitants put to death. She
attired him as a woman, and went with him to the
spring of Ain-Salib, which was in front of our house,
he carrying a water jar on his shoulder. She knocked
at our door and with tears begged that we would shelter
her boy, and conceal him with the others. We took him
in ; his mother told us we were about to be deported.

Suzanne, together with other widows from Mar-
Yacoub, had taken refuge with my father, and later had
entered the service of my brother, the priest, some days
before his martyrdom. We asked her to tell about it,
and she gave us the following account : " Police and sol-
diers entered the Bishop's house. They told the priest,
who, in his readiness to die, had refused to hide, that
Hamdi Bey required his presence at the Hospital, and
took him there. I followed at a distance to find out
what was going to happen to him. The priest, after a
few paces, inquired of the police what Hamdi Bey
wanted him for."

136 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

" Don't you know ? " they asked, with surprise. He
knew then that he was going to his death. The unfor-
tunate priest turned pale, took out a pound in gold and
gave it to them. With tears I offered them in turn a
ghazi (a small piece of gold), begging them to release
him. They answered that this was impossible, since
Hamdi Bey had sent for him. When I persisted they
struck me and chased me away.

The poor priest was taken to the hospital. During
the night those near heard his cries and groans for they
scourged him cruelly. He repeated continually, " For
the love of Christ's sufferings."

Among others who heard him was my cousin, Yous-
souf's daughter, Saide, who lived very near by.

My daughter Eudoxia, who had been carried off by
the Turks, told me later that the latter sometimes spoke
of her uncle, saying : " Do you remember that hand-
some priest who called out ' For the love of Christ,'
when he was beaten? The ruffian, he blasphemed even
in the middle of his tortures." Nedjiba, who was also
there, for she too had been carried off, told them that
my daughter was his niece. The latter began to cry

DEPOSITIONS CONCERNING MASSACRES AT SAIRT 137

and the Kurds threatened the child, telling her that if
she continued they would kill her like her uncle.

One Sunday morning in July they gathered us to-
gether, women and children, in the barracks, where we
passed the night outside in the open air. Next day we
were assembled in the courtyard of the Hospital, where
some days before the men had been grouped. They
wrote down our names and deported us together with
a convoy of women who had arrived from Bitlis. We
were over a thousand, women, girls and children. The
last named, with a few exceptions, were under six years
of age. When we left our homes we had brought some
clothes, but no blankets. Four soldiers accompanied us.
We were condemned to make our journey on foot, and
those who by reason of age, were incapable of doing so,
were massacred on the journey.

When we came to the village of Guazere, bands of
Kurds fell upon us and snatched away our money, food
and clothes. A woman servant of ours who carried a
bundle containing our food, after having her own be-
longings stolen, was thrown into the river which ran
along the edge of the village. After crossing the water
we were lined up while the soldiers searched us and

138 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

took our money and jewelry. Like the Kurds, they
threw themselves upon us, chose the girls and women
who were pretty and ill-treated them.

This fate befell, among others, Salima, my sister-in-
law ; Naima, daughter of Reskolla Chammas Aboche ;
Naima, my uncle George's daughter; Latifa, whose
father was Fathalla, my other uncle; Kerima, daughter
of Betros Kas Chaya, and her cousin Emelda, daughter
of Chamas Youssef.

Three days after the commencement of the journey
a soldier named Taher Tchaouche led his horse up to
me, holding it by the bridle. He demanded my little girl
Eudoxia, who was then but eight years old and who
was with me. I refused, and he said:

" Do not fear for her. She will be all right with me
and I shall give her back to you safe and sound."

I began to cry and scream. He snatched her from
me by force, mounted, placed her behind him and
spurring his horse, disappeared deaf to my entreaties.

We continued our journey on foot for several days,
passing from one village to another, our babies in our
arms. Finally worn out with fatigue and the heat of the

DEPOSITIONS CONCERNING MASSACRES AT SAIRT 139

burning sun, we came to the end of another stage, and,
v.s night came upon us, fell into a deep sleep.

We were now at Sôr, a large village under the ad-
ministrative authority of a Kaimakam (sub-Governor),
where we halted all day. The Kaimakam sent a tele-
gram to Mardin, asking what he should do with us.
The Mutessarif, or governor of Mardin, Bedri Bey,
ordered him not to send us back to Mardin : he was
to keep us there.

This was equivalent to an order for our massacre.
We set out again over mountains and through valleys by
winding roads. One of the women with us gave birth
to a still-born child on the way. The barbarous soldiers
obliged her to march on, despite her sufferings. The
unhappy woman died on the road.

From the top of a high mountain we saw at a dis-
tance hundreds of Kurds, men and women, on the
watch for their prey. Our guards led us into the
famous valley Wadi Wawela. There the Kurds and
their women fell upon us like wild beasts, and picking
up large stones, began to bombard the convoy. The
female Kurds also stoned us, and carried away what-
ever effects they found upon us. A Kurd came

140 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

towards me, and surprised to find I still wore a dress
and shoes, tore them off me, struck me with his fists
and made off.

As I ran I saw a poor woman, who was quite naked,
had been wounded in the side by a dagger thrust. She
was covered with blood. As she ran from these human
beasts she held up her intestines which emerged
through her terrible wound. Absolutely terrified, I
fled, carrying my baby in my arms. At length, over-
come by emotion and by fear, I fell to the ground
trembling. A Kurd passed me carrying off a girl he
had seized. She was Sayoud, daughter of Betros Kas-
Chaya. He came up to me and asked:

"Are you a girl or a married woman? "

" Here is my son," I replied, showing him my baby.
A soldier called out : " Don't take the women, kill
them, take the girls only." The Kurd replied that his
prey was a girl, and he departed with poor Sayoud.

The soldier picked up a large stone and threw it at
me. It struck me on the head. Stunned by the blow
I fell face downwards, and my child, which had fallen
from my arms, commenced to scream. I fainted and
remained senseless for some time.

DEPOSITIONS CONCERNING MASSACRES AT SAIRT 141

When I came to myself I found my poor baby
stretched upon the ground. Worn out by crying, and
burnt up by the scorching sun, he seemed as if he
knew and was resigned to his sad lot. My heart was
torn as I looked at my poor martyred child. Raising
myself I kissed him, and after pressing him to my
breast, placed him in the shade of a tree. Instinctively
my hand went to my head and I found that blood was
flowing from a large wound. Several Kurd women
passed' me carrying large bundles of clothes and other
things taken from victims. Seeing me they cried to
one another:

" Here is another who has not been killed. Let us
take her clothes." They approached me, and one seiz-
ing me by the feet tried to drag off my stockings. She
worked in vain, so swollen were my legs. Further-
more the blood from cuts caused by stones and thorns
had glued my stockings to my feet so thoroughly that
it was impossible to get them off without tearing them
to shreds. So they left me in peace and went on.

A moment later I saw four men approaching with
large daggers in their hands. They were coming
down the mountainside and in their bloodlust ad-

142 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

vanced towards me to kill me. An old man who was
with them turned them away, and so saved my life.
When they had gone he returned and suggested taking
me to his home, but for this service demanded pay-
ment. I told him I had no money, but his eyes fell
upon my child and its pitiable condition touched his
heart. Taking off his Katteke (jacket) he gave it to
me, saying:

" Cover up your child and wait. I shall come back
soon." Returning shortly afterwards he invited me to
accompany him to the village. This I did, stammer-
ing words of thanks. He took me to his house and
looked after the child and myself. His wife with her
own hands treated my wounds for several days, and
I, for my part, did what I could to make myself pleas-
ant and to render them service. The village where the
old man had his house was situated near Mardin,
where my mother's aunt lived. Her name was Cath-
erine, and she belonged to the Kendir family. But I
dared not ask my hosts to send me there.

A week had passed when, one day, feeling very
homesick, I went into the stable attached to the house,
a dark and isolated building. Throwing myself on my

DEPOSITIONS CONCERNING MASSACRES AT SAIRT 143

knees, crying bitterly the while, I fervently begged the
Blessed Virgin to protect us and to help us to regain
my relations. The very next day a woman who had
been deported from Sairt, and who similarly found
herself in this Kurd village, discovered me and told
me that she was leaving for Mardin with some ten
other deported women. I had the courage to ask my
Kurd protector to let me go. Touched by my tears,
he acceded to my request. I thanked him and joined
the others.

We started on foot, accompanied by some Kurd
women. After walking some hours we arrived at
Mardin, where I lived by whatever little work I could
get to do, and by the help which my brothers Théo-
phile and Phillippe sent me from Constantinople.

A year later I left Alardin with my daughter Eu-
doxia, whom I had found and brought back from the
Kurds, going with the family of my cousin Naaman
Effendi to Aleppo. There I lived for more than
twelve months with a cousin who looked after me and
fed me, although he was by no means rich himself, and
was burdened with the care of a large family.

0^-

0M^

Halata

CHAPTER II

Halata

The story of Halata, daughter of Hanna, a Chaldean
of Sairt

Madame Halata, a woman of 55 years of age, whom
I met at Constantinople, had come from Sairt, of
which town she is a native. Her sister was Madelain,
mother of the Abbe Hikare, Superior of the Seminary
at Charfe, on Mount Lebanon. Madelain died at
Mosul on the 2nd of October, 1918, as a result of her
sufferings during the period of her deportation. Ma-
dame Halata, who was in mourning for her son and a
great number of her relations, visited me at Constanti-
nople, at my request, and for several hours gave me
the details of her sufferings. She was so overcome that
she wept throughout the interview. Before making
notes of her experience I asked if she would guarantee
to give me nothing but the absolute truth.

" God be my witness," she replied, " that what I shall
tell you is only what my own eyes have seen."

146 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

Halata's Testimony

It was the time of Ramazan.^ The Government had
enrolled from among the Moslem population the fam-
ous corps known as Tchettas.^ With the chief Moslem
personages of the town at their head, the Tchettas
camped outside the town. The very day after I went
to make bread.^ On the way I saw that the Christians
were being arrested, among them " uncle " * George
Chammas, M. Fatho and many other Chaldeans of note. I
hurried home to tell my son Abdul Kerim, a boy of
seventeen, to remain within doors because of the dan-
ger. He, however, disobeyed me, saying that he was
of military age, and so had nothing to fear. He went
out and was arrested at once.

Those who had been arrested, in fact all the Christian
men of the town without exception, were gathered to-
gether in the barracks where their money, and even
their clothes were taken from them, so that they

*The Turkish month of fasting which precedes the feast of
the same name.

^A kind of Militia organized by the party of Union and Pro-
gress for the express purpose of carrying out the deportations
and massacres.

^Each family in this country makes its bread in community
ovens.

*A title of respect not necessarily implying relationship.

halata's testimony 147

remained almost naked. They were then tied arm to
arm in groups of seven. I, myself, with a Moham-
medan woman named Sherine, went and saw them
when they were in this condition. In the evening at
bedtime they were ranged off in file, their sole clothing
being their drawers. Even these were torn from the
dead bodies after their massacre in the valley of Zer-
yabe. They numbered several thousand and were all
roped together.

The hundred Tchettas who accompanied each convoy
included brigands and deserters who had come out from
their hiding places to take service in these regiments of
cut-throats. Each Tchetta wore a soldier's uniform and
carried a sword. Among these I recognized a sugar
hawker, a rascal named Abdia.

My gaze fell upon M. Mansour, a Chaldean member
of the administrative Council, who was weeping. He
had been in his house when the brigands arrived and
knocked at his door. His brother, an old man, demanded
what they wanted. His answer was a shot through the
keyhole of the door. It struck him in the eye and he fell
back dead. Abdul-Kerim Efïendi, the son of Mansour,
was found and killed in a cupboard where he had hidden.

148 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

His mother Elie, who was later at the time of the
deportations put to death, helped by her sisters, car-
ried out his bloodstained body and placed it in the
courtyard.

As I have mentioned before, the men of the convoy
were all killed in the Zeryabe valley. From our roof
we could hear the shots and see the flashes continuously
throughout the night. After killing the unfortunate
Christians the Tchettas pulled the bodies one upon
another, cast them into ditches, and piled earth in on
top of them.

Here Halata hurst into tears, I asked her if she had
seen the bodies herself.

*' No," she replied, " but Hame Eiïendi gave me the
details. I wish I could have seen those dear innocent
victims, those martyrs," she added. " I should have
cut a lock of hair from the head of each and kept it on
my heart as a relic."

And once again she broke down.

Next morning the Moslem population of the town
accompanied by gendarmes and soldiers invaded our
houses and commenced to loot them. They killed all
male children of from twelve to fifteen years of age

149

who remained in the town, as well as any men whom
they discovered hiding.

Here Halata paused for a moment. Then she said:
Before these things happened I was a very strong
woman, but during the. last two years I have become
very thin, wandering sorrowfully from one part of the
country to another. My heart is broken, for I have
lost my only son and most of those dear to me. To add
to my misfortune one of the rascals broke my shoulder
with a blow.

Many of our men had hidden themselves in wells and
were shot there. Others were killed in the streets,
stripped to the skin, and by means of ropes dragged
along the roads by their feet, their heads bumping on
the stones. I myself saw all this with my own eyes.
Nowhere could I glance without some fresh evidence
of Moslem cruelty. Hell itself had opened in our
Chaldean quarter. We looked on the Turks as very
demons.

They entered our houses, pillaging and breaking
everything, finally to leave rejoicing, carrying ofï what-
ever they pleased. Terrified Christian women and
girls fled weeping and screaming in despair to the

150 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

roofs. Some, tearing towards the house of the Gov-
ernor, screamed:

" Have mercy on us for the love of God."

From this day forv^ard our homes became the prop-
erty of the brigands. Turkish women began to lend
a hand and doubled the cruelty against us. We gath-
ered together in tears in groups of thirty or forty.

One day the Moslems assembled all the children of
from six to fifteen years and carried them ofif to the
headquarters of the police. There they led the poor
little things to the top of a mountain known as Ras-el-
Hadjar and cut their throats one by one, throwing
their bodies into an abyss.

/ asked Madame Halata whether what she was telling
me was not exaggerated.

" I call God to witness that it is less than the
reality," she replied.

A Turkish woman named Saiha saw the putrefying
bodies of the Christians outside the town. She came
to find me and said:

" Oh, the sight of those poor naked white bodies.
It had such an effect on me that I could neither eat
nor sleep."

' halata's testimony 151

After this the soldiers went from one house to the
other searching everywhere, and digging in the cor-
ners to discover whatever we had hidden. Five days
later sentries were posted before our doors to prevent
our going out. They told us that they were soon
going to deport the women and girls who remained.
Alarmed by this we arranged to forward a petition
saying that we preferred to be all burnt alive where
we were than to be deported. Two or three days later
two government officials arrived. One of them took
our names: the oth.r, who carried a purseful of money,
gave a piastre and half ^ to each of us, promising that
we should receive this amount every day. It was only
a ruse to obtain the names of all the women who
remained, in order that they might be prevented from
hiding themselves at the moment of the deportation;
for this distribution of money was never repeated.

Five days later soldiers came again, and we were
ordered to get ready to leave the town. We were
taken by them to one of their ports near Ain Salib,
and were crowded into little rooms, so closely packed
that we were almost suffocated by the heat. There

5 Five cents.

152 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

we remained until the evening, when the soldiers
ordered us to come out; and conducted us to the bar-
racks, pushing us and striking us on the way. Here
to our consternation we found thousands of Chris-
tians, who had been brought from the neighbouring
Chaldean villages. Among them was a priest, Kas-
Gourgius, who had been dressed in woman's clothes and
veiled, as also was another young Chaldean of twenty-
five, named Nasri. They were discovered, separated
from us, beaten brutally with clubs, and then taken
outside the barracks to be killed. Before leaving us
the innocent victims bade us farewell, Nasri kissing
the hand of his mother who screamed and wept.

We spent the night in the barracks. Police officials
and soldiers passed in and out, and in the most savage
manner snatched the prettiest girls from our midst.
Because of this, next day when the soldiers came to
lead us outside the town, women smeared their faces
with mud to appear ugly. As a matter of form our
executioners distributed to us bread, as black as pitch,
so uneatable that we preferred to leave it.

Our conductors led us, poor defenceless women,
along the country roads with every possible cruelty.

halata's testimony 153

They thrashed us with whips, and many died victims
to their barbarity. The road was strewn with the de-
composing bodies of women and children who had
preceded us. We wept unceasingly because of our ill
treatment at the hands of the soldiers, our hunger and
thirst, and the sight of our children who, tortured by
the lack of food, screamed piteously begging us for
bread which we could not give them. The sight of
the numberless bodies which we trod under foot, and
the stench with which they filled the air made us faint.
We could not breathe. We knew not where to look
to escape sights of indecency.

In the morning we left the town of Sairt. At mid-
day we came to the river Gazere and in the evening
to that of Bachour. As we had with us a number of
little children, who were unable to walk, we asked to
be allowed to hire mules. Some animals were brought
to us and for each we paid five or six medjidies.® I
mounted one with my goddaughter. After hardly
an hour's ride a soldier struck me a blow on the shoul-
der with a stick, and made me get down. My com-

"In all, at this time about $5.00 American money.

154 SÎÎALL tîIIS NATION DIE?

panion, Maria, the mother of Assad and Betros, who
are now in Constantinople, was killed as she rode. As
they crossed the rivers Gazere and Bachour many
mothers, worn out with carrying their children, and
in absolute despair, threw them into the water.

When night came and darkness enveloped us, the
soldiers began their terrible work. Coming among us
by the aid of lighted torches they chose the more
beautiful of those who remained and led them away ;
passing them on later to the Kurds. From 150 to 200
of the more beautiful Chaldean girls met this terrible
fate, among them the four daughters of Sede Cham-
mas-Abboche.

I myself saw them killed after they had been
violated in my presence. All women who were unable
to walk were put to death.

Seeing these abominations, and fearing for my
daughter, I went to the Tchaouche (sergeant), and
knowing a little Turkish, I begged him to accept some
money, and let me escape with my daughter to the
mountains and go to Sheikh Asso in the village of
Telane. Five or six other women also bribed him,
and accompanied me. On the mountain side were a

155

large number of Kurds, men and women, who awaited
the passage of the Christian convoys in order to throw
themselves upon them and steal their belongings. As
these savages saw us advance towards them they
cried :

" Waren ! Waren ! ^ We shall take you to the
Sheikh.'* The malicious Tchaouche, after taking our
bribes, informed the soldiers that we had money.
Leaving the convoy they rushed after us, and began
to fire at us to turn us back. We halted, upon which
they seized us and searched us, relieving us of our
jewels, money and clothes.

" Now go to Sheikh Asso," they said. The Kurds
who were to take us to the Sheikh made us walk for
several hours, then having halted us they fell upon us,
stealing the little we still possessed, leaving us but our
underwear. Seizing three of our prettiest girls they
criminally assaulted them before our very eyes. The
barbarians having at length left us, we walked on
almost naked until night fell, knowing not whither
we went.

^ " Come along ! Come along ! "

156 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

Next day we saw a Kurd shepherd of the village of
Bekand whom I knew and who had frequently come
to my house at Sairt. He recognized me, and, seeing
my lamentable state, cried out and covered his face not
to see me thus. He took us to the Sheikh, who,
touched with pity at our condition, ordered bread and
curdled milk to be given us. He also found us some
old garments with which to cover ourselves.

Having allowed us time to sleep. Sheikh Asso sum-
moned us next day and said he was going to send us
to Bekind. " I am forced to do so," he added, " be-
cause to give hospitality to Christians would be to
bring me into grave displeasure with the Government.
I shall give you four men to take you to your destina-
tion. When you get there give them each a little
money lest they kill you."

We set out again. A Kurd horseman appeared, dis-
mounted, clutched a daughter of Issa-Chore named
Challe and stabbed her in the breast with a dagger.
The poor girl fell back on the burning sand bathed in
her blood. She died two days later after a long agony.
The horseman wished to kill us all, but was prevented
by our escort. On our arrival at Bekind one of our

157

Turkish guards went to the village and warned a
Christian woman, Amina, who had been forcibly con-
verted to Islam, and who came to meet us. She gave
us some money to pay the guards and took us in for
the night. Her husband, Sopki Hamza, who was a
soldier, was at the front. Amina hid us in a stable,
but her Kurd neighbours, who got wind of the matter,
informed the Mudir, who had us arrested. The Mudir
recognized me.

"Why have you left the convoy?" he asked us.

" Because the Kurds wished to shoot us," I replied.

" Where are your clothes? " (We were in rags.)

*' The Kurds took them from us," I told him.

He then called four gendarmes and ordered them to
take us to the place where the Chaldeans of Bekind
had been massacred and kill us there. Looking on
death as a deliverance, we did not even move to ask
him for our lives. The soldiers seized us with our
children, eight persons in all. After two hours' march
we had almost arrived at the place of slaughter, when
a soldier in the distance called out :

" Return, the Mudir has sent for you."

158 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

On our return to the village we threw ourselves at
the Mudir's feet begging him to spare us.

" You owe your lives," he told us, " to my brother,
Sabri Effendi, who knows Halata, and who learning
that I had sent you to your death asked me to spare
you."

We remained a week in the village, living on alms
and lodging in a stable. A new governor had come
to Sairt, one Bayram Fehmi Bey. Learning that I
could cook, he sent for me. My daughter had stayed
with Amina. Ijwent to Sairt and immediately joined
the household of the governor, and my poor com-
panions who had expressed a desire to accompany me
obtained shelter elsewhere. The Turks, learning of
the presence of Christian women in Sairt decided to
kill them. One of my companions was strangled, the
other being stabbed. I myself saw their naked bodies
lying abandoned in the street, covered with blood.

Archbishop Addai had also been pursued by the
Government. Some Kurds, however, subjects of
Osman, Agha of Tanze, chief of the tribes Hadide and
Atamissa, great friends of the Archbishop's and pro-
tectors of the Christians, disguised him as a Kurd and

Rt. Rev. Addai Sheir, Archbishop of Sairt

159

got him away by a secret door of his residence. For
some days he remained with his friend the Agha, but
a regiment learning of his flight, attempted to trace
him. Knowing that the Kurd chief had concealed
him they summoned him to surrender the Archbishop,
set fire to his house, and threatened him with death.
The Agha fled with his family. The Kurds who
remained, tired of the struggle, were obliged to indi-
cate the hiding place of the prelate, whom the sol-
diers seized and killed with eight shots. I saw his
Episcopal ring on the finger of an officer. The Arch-
bishop's secretary, Father Gabriel Moses George Adamo,
was arrested, beaten and savagely done to death at the
same time, as well as a Chaldean poHce officer named
Yacoub Effendi.

Before the arrest of this priest the parish priests of
several villages in the environs of Sairt took refuge
in the church of the town, flying from the massacres
in the villages. Among them were Father George,
parish priest of Berke ; Father Hanna, parish priest of
Sadagh; Fathers Moussa, Thomas and Youssef, who
had charge of the Church at Guedyanes, and Father
Michael, parish priest of Der Mar-Yacoub. They

160 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

were all seized and massacred. Seven days after their
arrest the poor priest of Sairt, Father Azar, who had
hidden himself in a well, was killed with every refine-
ment of torture.

I remained six months in the service of the Gov-
ernor at Sairt, with whose predecessor I had also
worked. It was the latter who had ordered the mas-
sacres, but he had sent me home a week before the
tragedy. '

The Mohammedan populace was jubilant at the
extermination of Christians in the towns. Mullah
Elias, who lived in a house near that of the Governor,
and other personages such as Mullah Kheder, Mullah
Ahmed and Mullah Taher, participants in the mas-
sacres, told me that the people of Sairt would no
longer allow a single Christian in the town, and that
if ever one dared to enter he would be killed. Some-
times I passed before our great cathedral, now a stable
filled with manure and utterly changed, but the sight
of it upset me and made me weep.

The Chaldean cemetery likewise had been dese-
crated, the tombstones had been uprooted and many
of the graves profaned.

halata's testimony 161

The Pasha left Sairt and I had to accompany him to
Mardin, where we stayed four days. There an officer
brought me the two daughters of Madame Kannoun.
They had formed part of the Chaldean convoys from
Sairt and told me that they had been taken at some hours'
distance from Mardin, where the Kurds fell upon them
and stoned them. We remained for some time half dead
among the rocks when other passing Turks found us still
alive and took us to Mardin to put us up for sale.
Mar^ Israel, the Chaldean Archbishop, brought us back.

From soldiers and Kurds who had come to the Gov-
ernor's house I learned that the women and children
of the Chaldean village of Redwan, near Sairt, had
been gathered together in one place and burned alive
with petrol.

On the 20th of August, 1916, I received the follow-
ing letter from my daughter, who had been carried off
by the Turks near Sairt, of which I have the original :
" Dear Mother :

I have received the letter you sent me care of Refik,
also the two and a half pounds. If you only knew the
state in which I am you would cry day and night. I

8 Mar is the Chaldean title for Bishops.

162 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

am in the midst of Kurds and go from village to vil-
lage to get a crust of bread. At the present moment
I am at Berke. I have to walk barefoot, and am
clothed in rags. Refik Efifendi, vv^ho saw me, took
pity on me, and being an old friend of the family, sent
me to Sairt, not wishing to see me beg in the villages.
I do what work I can get in order to live. I cannot
tell you how utterly miserable I am. Have pity upon
me! Am I not your daughter? When you get my
letter, send me a little money and a shawl with which
to cover my head. I must resign myself to my sad
lot, waiting with impatience until you send me help.
Refik Efifendi is doing all he can to assist me. If he
can get me a permit to travel, I shall rejoin you as soon
as I can. But alas, it is very difficult. How are you,
mother, dear? Send me some news of yourself at
once.

Your unhappy daughter,

RAHEL."

Rev. Gabriel Adamo, Secy, to the Archbishop of Sairt

Karima (Aged 13)

CHAPTER III

Karima (aged IS)

Certain Moslem citizens of Sairt came to Constanti-
nople in 1918, bringing with them some Chaldean girls
who had been abducted from their families. Being
short of money and unable to provide for their vic-
tims, they desired to get rid of them. One of the
number was Karima, aged thirteen. Learning that
she had relations in the city, they sent her to them.
She returned barefoot and clad only in a chemise and
a bathing dress, in which costume I photographed her.
Latif Bey Tabib, a prominent Chaldean, and a mem-
ber of the Court of Appeal at Constantinople, inter-
viewed the child, who gave him the following account:

At the time of the massacres I was just ten years
of age. My father, Djerdjis, was an employe in the
Government administration of the State Monopoly of
Salt, a branch of that of the National Debt. Our
family was composed of my mother (Jane), my three
brothers Kerim (the eldest, aged eleven), Youssouf

164 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

and Latif, and my grandfather, an old man named
George.

Four years ago, at the end of the spring, our house
in the quarter of Ain-Salib was attacked one day by
twenty bandits. Despite their prayers, my father and
grandfather were stabbed to death forthwith, and my
mother, brothers and myself carried away to a place
they had chosen. After murdering my relatives, and
throwing their bodies into ditches outside the town,
the Kurds took me away to the village of Zewida with
other Chaldean girls of my own age. I was kept there
for a year. At night some of the Kurds insulted me.
I dared not resist for fear of being killed.

A year later I returned to Sairt with a Turkish lady.
Believing he would take pity upon me and give me
something to eat, she had me taken to the house of
Abdul Ferid, the man who had sacked our home.
Abdul Ferid, however, sent me away. A Chaldean
lady who acted as nurse in the house of a Turk named
Tewfik, with another Christian woman called Mah-
bouba, interceded for me that I might be employed
there in carrying water.

One day, while I was carrying my pitcher to the
fountain, a soldier named Abdullah, a water carrier

KARIMA 165

from the hospital at Sairt, took me home with him by
force. His mother, Fattoum Hanem, led me to the
place where the poor Chaldeans had been slain and
said to me: ** If you are not obedient you will be put
to death like your co-religionists."

The place was an awful charnel house, where one
could still see the bones and hair of the victims. On
our retreat Fattoum asked : " Did you understand
what I said, you dirty infidel?"

I was frightened and dared not reply. When the
water carrier, Abdullah, returned home he subjected me
to every kind of outrage. For three long years I had
to put up with the devilish caprices and illtreatment
of his mother. Finally famine began to be felt in the
town. All except the murderers such as the chief
brigand Abdul Riza, ex-deputy of Seert, suffered in
consequence: for the latter had stored up a large part
of what had been pillaged and stolen from the Chris-
tians. Abdullah the water carrier at length seeing
that it was impossible to support his family, told his
mother to take her children with her and beg from
door to door. The woman, however, resolved to leave
for Constantinople.

I cannot recount here the sufferings I underwent

166 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

during the three months of this terrible journey, both
from hunger and from Fattoum and her children. On
arriving at Constantinople the old woman handed me
over to another Turkish lady who happily knew a rela-
tion of mine, Zeki Chorize. At my request she went to
see him, and he received me into his home, where I still
remain.

Thousands of Chaldeans were cruelly massacred in
my part of the country. Many of the girls are in the
hands of the Turks and Kurds.

The names of my murdered relatives are as follows :
My mother, her brothers Tewfik and Boulous, and her
sister Hilane; my three brothers Kerim (the eldest,
put to death at the instance of the ferocious Abdul
Ferid, who looted our house), Yousuf and Latif;
Djerdj is my father, and his brother Pition and sister
Khatoun, grandfather George; lastly both my grand-
mothers Rahel on my mother's side and Suzanne on that
of my father.

All the objects of value which we possessed, such
as watch-bracelets, gold chains and earrings, were
stolen by Abdul Ferid who is now at Sairt.

Stera and Warina

CHAPTER IV

Two Captured Sisters
Stera and Warina

Early in 1915 I found myself at the Chaldean Vicar-
ate in Aleppo, when a young lady came to -.see the
parish priest. Her language and manners savoured of
one who did not belong to the district. I asked the
parish priest who she was, and he replied that she was
a Chaldean of Sadagh, aged eighteen, named Stera, and
that she had a sister called Warina. They were the
daughters of Kas Hanna Chammas. The Governor of
Sairt had taken them to his house during the massacres.
Here they remained until the Governor left for Aleppo,
on his way back to Constantinople. She was an eye-
witness of the massacre of the Archbishop of Sairt.
She is now married to a young man of her village who is
employed on the Bagdad Railway, Yonan, the son of
Abdullah.

So interested was I in these details that I went to see
her, photographed her with her sister, and begged her
to give me the following résumé of her history.

168 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

The Deposition of S ter a

The Kurds came and attacked our village, sacking and
plundering whatever they could find, and killing all the
inhabitants ; among others, all my relatives. My sister
and I, remaining unprotected, were carried off by the
marauders and taken to Aine, a mountain spot a day's
journey from Sairt. Later on our abductors took us
from village to village.

One day when we were at Sairt I was present at a
horrible scene, the chief figure in which was His Grace,
Mar Addai, the Chaldean Archbishop of that town. He
was in a pitiable state, pale and thin. The soldiers began
by jeering at him, pulling his beard and striking him with
their rifle butts, firing their revolvers into the air in
front of him. They then took the Archbishop outside
the town, and, having slain a servant of his protector,
Osman Agha, killing him with a fatal blow on the head,
the butchers cut off the head of the Archbishop in order
to show it to the Governor.

My sister and I remained with the Kurds, after which
we were sent away to a village named Gawate. The
Governor of Sairt searched for us there, and when he
found us, kept us in his house. Our new master soon

THE DEPOSITION OF STERA 169

after left for Mosul where he remained some days. His
wife seized this opportunity to visit her relatives at Kar-
kouk, and took us with her. On our return via Mosul,
we left for Constantinople. When passing through
Aleppo, where we made a stop, we were guarded by a
servant girl while in the streets.

One day while taking my usual walk with the servant,
this time without my sister, when passing the entrance
to a street in the Saliby quarter, I noticed a crowd
emerge from a building. Curiosity led me to ask the
reason.

*' They are Christians coming out of a church," I was
informed.

This utterly surprised us, because I had always been
told by Turks and Kurds that Christians and churches
no longer existed. I then began to take good note of
the streets through which I passed, in order not to lose
myself if I went out alone. On returning to the house
I made up my mind to take to flight.

Next morning the servant girl wished to make me go
out, but I pretended to be ill, and she went by herself.
Profiting by the unexpected solitude, I took my little
sister by the hand and, free as the birds, we ran off.

170 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

making directly for the street where I had seen the
Christians coming out of the church. I entered and
spoke to the priests, telling them that I was a Chaldean,
and that the Turks had kept me a prisoner since the
massacre of my relatives. They took me to the Chal-
dean parish priest, Father Michael Chaya, to whom I
told my tale. The latter confided me to a family of
Sairt related to the Aboche family, with whom I was
acquainted.

Meanwhile the most extraordinary happenings were
going on in the Governor's house. The whole place was
upset by the general search for us. The Governor, who
did not want to lose us, communicated the news of our
flight to all his bodyguard, giving out that we had stolen
a hundred pounds from him when we left. He dared
not admit that I had been carried ofï and treated like a
slave. Happily we were well hidden in the house which
had offered us hospitality, and the police did not suc-
ceed in finding us. We were saved.

CHAPTER V

In the Desert

Louis Ganima, a Syrian of Ourfa, took service with
the Bagdad Railway Company in order to avoid military
duty. Being engaged up and down the line during the
deportations, he had an opportunity of seeing all the
abominations which were practised, and, at Aleppo, in
May, 1918, gave me the following account of what he
witnessed, offering his word of honour as a guarantee
of the truth:

In the autumn of 1915 there arrived in the neighbor-
hood of Mohammadi-Khan, an almost desert spot
between Waren-Chehir, Urfa and Ras-el-Ain, convoys
composed of 10,000 women, girls and children. These
caravans had come from Erzerum, Kharput, Sairt, Diar-
bekir and Mardin, and remained several days in the
neighbourhood of Mohammadi-Khan.

For the first few days the soldiers were busy plunder-
ing their victims of whatever they had left. Without
clothes, suffering from cold and hunger, two thousand

172 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

died from sickness and exposure. Several hundred, ren-
dered mad by thirst, threw themselves into the empty
reservoirs, common in this desert country, and there died,
while a large number of others were killed by the Kurds
and thrown in on top of them. Thirteen reservoirs were
filled in this manner. Several thousand Christians who
remained were surrounded one day by five hundred
armed Kurd horsemen and one hundred and fifty police.
Having gathered the unhappy wretches together in a
place edged with the long dry grass which grows so
abundantly in the semi-arid region, the persecutors set
fire to it. Before doing this they plundered their vic-
tims of all they had.

The unhappy people, terror-stricken at seeing the
flames approaching them, realized that their end had
come. Those who made their way through the flames
were met by an equally deadly rifle fire. Thus were
exterminated some thousands of human beings, all
indeed that remained of the above-mentioned convoys.

After this awful holocaust, Kurd women and children
arrived with sieves and sifted the ashes of the dead to
see if they could find gold, since it was a regular prac-

A HEROINE OF MARDIN 173

tice of the Christian women to swallow pieces of money
for future u^

A Heroine of Mardin

I was employed on the local managing staff during the
construction of the Bagdad Railway as far as a point
between Arrada and Tallerman. One day while I was
in a Kurd village the mayor, taking me for a Turkish
medical man, began to speak to me with some freedom,
and asked me my name. To make him think I was a
Mussulman, I replied " Assad Effendi." Being sure
that I was a Moslem, he commenced to take me into his
confidence, and gave me the following story :

*' I once had some business relations with a Christian
family of Mardin, named Djannandji. At the time of
the massacres I was witness of the arrival in the village
of a convoy of women guarded by Circassians, who pro-
ceeded to put the women up for sale, as if in a slave
market. Among them I noticed an exceedingly beautiful
girl named Kalmouni, belonging to this family, the
Djannandji, and did all I could to rescue her from the
hands of the brigands. I bought seven of them, includ-
ing Kalmouni, and took them to my home. They had

174 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

all come from Mardin, and I was acquainted with most
of their relatives.

At first I tried to console them. Then my son fell in
love with Kalmouni and asked my consent to their union.
I put the matter before the beautiful girl, who, however,
declared that she would rather die than marry a Mos-
lem. Several times I reasoned with her, but in vain. I
then threatened her, saying that I should kill her unless
she accepted my son, but it was all quite useless.

One day, when there was no one in the house, I had
them all stripped and placed in one room. Then I began
to threaten them.

* You have all got to marry Kurds,' I told them.

I swore at them, threatening all with death unless they
listened to me, and on their continuing to refuse,
assaulted them. Next, to frighten the girl I wished to
give to my son, I shot three of her companions. Kal-
mouni, quite impassible, encouraged her companions,
exhorting them to resist. Seeing so much blood flow, I
was a little touched, and spared the others.

Coming back to the beautiful Kalmouni, I continued to
threaten her. She, however, boldly insulted me, saying:

A SCENE OF HORROR 175

* You are a coward to treat women in such a way.
You are unworthy to be called a man.'

Furious at her words, I drew my revolver to kill her.

' By the bread you have so often eaten at our house/
she cried, ' do not kill me as I am.'

In her modesty, being unclothed, she begged me at
least to allow her to die with her back to me. ' Kill me
now,' she said, as she faced the wall. At her words I
hesitated; and, remembering my old time friendship
with her family, decided to spare her. Then, fearing
that the brave girl would one day ruin my reputation by
recounting how I had treated her, I shot her in the back
and killed her."

A Scene of Horror

One day I found myself at Amuda, a station on the
Bagdad Railway near Nisibin. There I met in the house
of a Kurd a very beautiful girl from Nigda, named
Leucintag, who had been deported. She belonged to a
very good family, and spoke French perfectly, having
finished her studies under the care of the French nuns.
She gave me the following account of her experiences :

" As one of a convoy, I came with my father and

176 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

mother to Ras-el-Ain, whence, one month later, I was
deported to a spot in the desert with fifteen thousand
others. A crowd of Tcherkess, Turks and nomads fell
upon us and massacred the convoy with their swords,
clubs, daggers and other weapons.

An Arab snatched me from the hands of the brigands
and saved me. Later, seeing a chance of making money,
he sold me for five pounds ^ and an agal ^ to a Bedouin
chief of the tribe of Shammar, whose headquarters were
in the environs of Nisibin. I was given the Arab name
of Ayyouche, and my face was tattooed with all kinds of
symbols. After staying there some time, I resolved to
escape, and succeeded in leaving the village unseen.

I took the road to Mosul, walking by night and hiding
by day. After three days of this, worn out with fatigue,
without water or bread, I saw a group of men in the dis-
tance, and took them for wandering Arabs. On coming
up with them I discovered that they were Christians who
were being deported to Mosul. The convoy was divided
into three parts, two of which were destined respectively

* $25.00 American money.

^A headdress in the shape of a crown made of several loose
rings of coarse hair.

A SCENE OF HORROR 177

for Sendjar and Mosul, the rest returning again to Ras-
el Ain. I remained three days with the last named party,
living on what they could give me. The object of the
Turks was to cause the death of all the Christians, who
were dragged unceasingly from one place to another that
this might be brought about.

The convoy reached Tall-Halif, and then later again
to Rais-el-Ain, which adjoins a little water course called
Djirdjib. We were taken to large reservoirs or cisterns
which are to be found in these desert places. Here the
soldiers, with the assistance of some Tcherkess, cut the
throats of the Christians, one after the other, and threw
them into the cisterns. I was about the thirtieth to suf-
fer, and received a sword stroke on the head, after which
I lost consciousness. On coming to consciousness, I
found myself in one of the reservoirs. My first realiza-
tion was a blow I received from a body thrown in on
top of me by the butchers for overhead the massacre
continued.

The wound I had received on the head was not seri-
ous, for the murderers, in their haste to get through the
large number they had killed, threw them into the cis-
terns without even troubling to finish them ofï, and I felt

178 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

the unfortunate people near me moving in agony. I had
lost a great deal of blood, but tried to find a way of sav-
ing myself, and of not being buried under the bodies
which rained down upon me. Every time, therefore, that
a corpse crashed into the cistern, I was obliged to hoist
myself upon it, lest I should be buried under the ava-
lanche of those who followed. The poor wounded vic-
tims were struggling, and I felt them quivering under
me. Their moans and groans made me shudder, but the
instinct to preserve oneself is strong.

Toward evening, the butchery being over, I found
myself at the top of the cistern, almost on a level with
the ground. There I spent the night, losing blood from
my wound and unable to get out.

Next day passers by, moved by curiosity, came to look
into the cisterns. An old Arab of the Baggara tribe saw
me and took me to his tent. I was married to his son,
with whom I remained some time, when he sold me for
eighteen medjidies^ to a certain Hussein, son of the
mayor of the village of Amuda, who was about to go to
Ras el Ain. The latter married me in his turn, and I
am still with him."

' About $18.00.

THE RAILROAD OFFICIAL FINISHES HIS STORY 179

When the unhappy Leucintag told me her story it wor-
ried me very much to think that, though an official of
the Bagdad Railway, I had no power to come to her
assistance, nor to that of any other of my own religion.

The Railroad Official Finishes His Story.

At Tel Halif I encountered another girl named Hay-
ghanouche, who had been forced to live with a Turkish
Captain who commanded a labor battalion engaged in the
construction of the Bagdad Railway. She had been given
the additional Mohamedan name of Khadidja.

The girl had belonged to a convoy of 4,000 women,
girls and children which had arrived on the banks of the
Tigris at a point between Djezire and Mosul. The order
for the massacre of this convoy had not yet been given
by the government of Der-el-Zor. Nevertheless as soon
as it reached the river the soldiers separated the rich from
the poor, took the latter aside and put them to death, in
order to frighten the richer victims into yielding their
money. Only a thousand survived, and these were
despoiled by the soldiers of most of their possessions and
abandoned.

180 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

Twenty days later, no longer having any means of sub-
sistence, the unhappy victims of the deportation began to
sell their clothes, and the little they still possessed.
They finished by killing the beasts of burden, and even
went so far as to resort to cannibalism.

One girl, seeing the sufferings of her parents, said to
them:

*' Do not die of hunger ; kill me and eat my flesh ! "

Hunger and thirst caused such atrocious sufferings
that they fought one another for pieces of flesh torn
from the bodies of those who had died, and after roast-
ing them, ate them.

His Grace, Archbishop of Diarbekir

CHAPTER VI

The Massacres of Diarbekir

Hanna, a Chaldean, came from Diarbekir to Con-
stantinople at the beginning of the winter of 1918. He
had been present at the massacre of Diarbekir, and his
brother and relatives had fallen victims to the bar-
barity of the Turks. The following is the account he
gave to Mr. Latif Bey Tabib, a prominent Chaldean
of Constantinople, by whom it was transcribed :

Hannahs Testimony

Hamid Bey was Governor of Diarbekir at the begin-
ning of the massacres. Among the more important
of his cruelties was the shooting of the poor Chaldean
villagers of Carabache, near Diarbekir, on the charge
of having fled without permission to the Vilayet of
Erzerum.

Now this was absolutely untrue, the poor wretches
not having left their houses since the issue of the
decree mobilizing the soldiers. So concentrated and
numerous were the volleys that the bodies of the vil-

182 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

lagers were blown to bits. To complete the atrocity,
other Christians were obliged to load the shattered
remains into carts and transport them to the cem-
etery. The Governor, Hamid Bey, and the civil in-
spector, Nadji Bey, witnessed the execution with every
evidence of satisfaction.

Owing to an order from Constantinople, Hamid Bey
left his post precipitately in March, 1915. His sudden
departure gave rise to a very natural fear among the
Christians, and they urged the Archbishop to ask the
Governor the reason. The only answer he received
was:

" You will know later on."

Dr. Rechid Bey succeeded Hamid. The newcomer
took his quarters at the Governor's residence, having
as his guard a body of forty Tchettas, Circassians like
himself.

Rechid Bey's first care was to organize a militia
composed of local men of prominence, some of whom
were:

1. Rechid Bey, the Governor.

2. Bedri Bey, Governor's Military Secretary,

hanna's testimony 183

3. Yassin Agha Zade Chewki, Commander of the
Militia.

4. Djemil Pacha Zade Moustafa Bey, Lieutenant-
Colonel.

5. Hadji Baki Effendi, Captain.

6. Direkdji Tahir Effendi, Captain.

7. The son of Ali Haito Said, Lieutenant.

8. MoussouUi Zade Mehmed, a furrier.

9. Attar Zade Hadki Efifendi, President of the Com-
mittee of Union and Progress.

10. Djerdjiss Zade Youssouf, who was blind in
one eye.

11. Djerdjiss Zade Abdul Rahim Eiïendi.

12. Tahir Agha Zade Azize.

13. Deputy Feizi Bey, one of the most influential
members of the committee, and one of the chief insti-
gators of the massacres.

14. Pirindji Zade Sidki Efïendi, the most cruel of
all, a relative of Feize Bey.

15. VeU Bey, son of Veli Baba,
nople.

16. Memdouh Bey, a bloodthirsty ogre.

17. Tcharkhi Zade.

184 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

18. Mehmed.

19. Hafize.

20. Abdul Latif.

21. Mardilli Emin Efïendi.

22. Hafize, son of Terradj Youssouf Agha.

23. Emin Agha,

24. Yahia Efïendi

Tyrants of the Chaldean village
of Tcharokia.

25. Kassab Hedjo, a butcher by trade, executioner
of convoys.

26. Cheikho, his brother.

27. Kassab Hadji Suleiman, a butcher.

28. Seerdli Bakal Hayo.

29. Serradj Youssous Agha.

30. Zaza Alo Efïendi.

Having called a council of all these scoundrels, the
Governor issued a decree that v^ithin three days, under
heavy penalty. Christians v^ere to deliver to him what-
ever arms they had in their houses. Each gave up
every weapon he possessed. A large quantity of arms
and dynamite were brought from the Seraglio and
barracks. Photographs of these theatrical prépara-

HANNA s TESTIMONY

185

tions were taken and published in pamphlet form as
a means of propaganda. The Christians were then
subjected to appalling tortures to oblige them to admit
that they had arms concealed in their homes. Their
nails were torn out and they were shod with iron like
horses.

The second act of the tragedy commenced with the
carrying ofif of those soldiers who were Christians. A
proclamation was made to the effect that soldiers who
had a profession or trade would be employed in the
town, and that unskilled workers were to be used for
the construction of roads. The skilled men quitted
their homes to take up the work assigned them, and
the fifteen hundred assembled for road work were mas-
sacred a month later. Not one escaped death. The
slaughter took place in July, 1915, at Kara-Djouroun
and Kara-Bagh ; two hours' journey from Diarbekir.
The murderers were the police of Diarbekir; promi-
nent among whom were the smuggler Emin Gazal and
Khalil Tchaoush, a fruiterer of Tahta-Kale.

Among the Chaldean victims whose names I know
are the following: Keriakos Tadjer; Boutros Nedme
Boutros, the son of Amsih ; Stephen Hadad ; Hanna

186 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

Boureudji of Sairt; Hadji Vierim, son of Joseph, a
watchmaker; Shamoun, son of Stefane, headmaster of
the Chaldean School of the Province, and Rizkalla, a
fruiterer, etc.

Those who had not been sent to the work of road
mending were arrested in their homes, handcuffed and
taken to the Tashnak Café. Prior to their being led
off like sheep to the slaughter-house, they were
inspected by the Governor. Then with the more
prominent Christians of the district they were thrown
into prison to the number of about seven hundred.

One of the bloodiest of the murderers, Feizi Bey,
being determined that all the Christians should be
slaughtered, went with Rechid Bey to the telegraph
office and sent a wire to the Central Office of the Com-
mittee of Union and Progress, demanding the exter-
mination of the poor wretches.

He obtained the necessary order by pretending that
if the Christians were not punished the Turks, who
had taken fright and barricaded themselves in the
mosques, would not dare to return to their homes.

The presence on the Tigris of several kalleks^ had

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187

given rise among the Christians to considerable uneasi-
ness. The Turks, however, hypocritically explained
that the Kalleks were to be laden with corn for the
province of Mosul. The falsity of this statement was
soon proved, for one dark night the seven hundred
prisoners just mentioned were embarked and taken
towards a place called Pelikan, where they were hur-
riedly landed, being assured that they would be taken
safe and sound to Djezire, and thence to Mosul.

As soon as they had landed a heavy volley killed a
large number, and a trick was employed to exterminate
the rest. The officer in command gave out that this
volley was due to a mistake.

" Let no man lose his head ! " he cried, " March on ! '*
The survivors, taking him at his word, obeyed, but
hardly had they started when a second fusillade wiped
out the whole convoy. Falling upon their victims,
the executioners stripped them of everything. The
booty was a rich one, for before their departure, the
Christians had been told to take with them all their
gold and silver in order to meet the expenses of their
long journey. The rapacious cruelty of the murderers
even caused them to telegraph for monetary assistance

188 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

to the relatives of the victims, a trick which brought
the brutes more money.

After this hecatomb the assassins returned to the
town to complete the series of crimes they intended
to perpetrate upon thç remainder of the Christian
population. They began by dividing the Armenian
and Chaldean quarters into zones, to each of which
was assigned a guard of executioners. The houses
in each quarter were invaded, and the old men and
women ordered to leave at once with their children.
Nor was the injunction forgotten that those who wished
might pay for carriages. Those who could not
mounted on donkeys. Kurds of the villages which
were the personal property of the notorious Churki
Bey were charged with the formation of these sinister
caravans. The poor victims were advised to take with
them all the household objects and utensils they could
carry, as they would need them en route.

They did not have to wait long before they met their
sad fate. A large part of the convoys were massacred
in the villages of Churki Bey, and the rest near the
bridge of the town. Their property naturally remained
in the hands of their murderers.

HANNAHS TESTIMONY 189

Meantime a reprieve was accorded by the central
office at Constantinople to the Assyro-Chaldeans, but
unfortunately was of use to few. The Chaldean Arch-
bishop, seeing that in spite of the pardon the Chaldean
families were being deported and handed over to the
executioners, with great courage made every possible
effort to diminish the rage of the murderers. At grave
risk he approached the Governor and the deputy, Zulfi
Efïendi. The latter hypocritically assured him that no
measures would be taken against those of his nation.
Deputy Zoulfi Efïendi himself extorted L. T. 200 in
gold ^ from me as the price of the life of my brother
Joseph, who was handed over to the executioners not-
withstanding. For four consecutive months the holo-
causts continued.

The sinister Governor Rechid remained a year at his
post. On the day of his departure a hundred and fifty
debtors to the state were gathered together; and as a
farewell compliment were massacred at Siran Tepe,
a place a few minutes' distant from the barracks at
Diarbekir. Of these several were Chaldeans of my
acquaintance, among whom were Hanna and Riz

'$1,000.

19D

SHALL THIS NATION ÎDIE f

Kalla. The loot pillaged and stolen from the unfor-
tunate victims was collected in certain large Christian
houses before being divided among the brigands. A
large number of pretty girls were carried ofï and sent
to the harems. Archbishop Sulieman, the Metropolitan,
sent L. T. 1500^ to the bloody Rechid to preserve the
lives of those who remained of his nation. All he
could obtain was the concession that a small part of
his community, instead of being massacred, were sent
to a spot near the town of Fiskia, where the men were
employed in road mending. Needless to say, the Arch-
bishop himself had to pay for the ration of bread issued
to the workers.

The churches in the Chaldean villages were all
sacked, plundered and reduced to ruins. Those which
were spared were turned into hospitals or stables.

Governor Rachid is said to have sent to Constanti-
nople eighty bales of loot taken from the Christians.
The remainder he gave to his friends, among whom
were Deputies Feizi and Zulfi.

'$7,500.

Michael and His Brother

CHAPTER VII

In the Tents of the Bedouins

Some days before my departure from Aleppo, early
in June, 1918, I learnt that friends of mine named
Boyadji had just received into their house a grandson
of theirs, a boy of tv^elve, found among the Bedouins
in the desert. He was of very good parentage and w^as
called Michael Keshish-Oghlou. His little brother, aged
nine, had also been recovered some months before by his
uncle. I went to see the child and found him very thin
and suffering from a stomach affection, brought on by his
privations. I asked him to tell me how the Bedouins
had taken him away with them, and what had hap-
pened to him. He had almost forgotten his own lan-
guage, but spoke the Arabic of the Bedouins perfectly
and made use of that language to give me with great
simplicity the following story:

Michael's Story
" One morning our executioners took all the men
and threw them into prison, where they remained for
a long time. One day I went to the prison where I

192 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

found that all who had been shut up had been mas-
sacred and thrown into the river.

The Turks then proceeded to collect all the women,
girls and children whom they intended to deport, and
formed them into convoys which were sent along the
Mardin road.

My mother, sister, little brother and I joined
four convoys of three hundred people, among whom
were twenty old men. We marched along, anxious
and worried. When far from the town the blue uni-
formed soldiers and turbaned Kurds who accompanied
us began to sharpen their daggers before our eyes.
Then they rolled up their sleeves and commenced.
Ten minutes sufficed to cut the throats of the old men
who were the first to sufïer. Next, by way of a
change, the soldiers took ten of the prettiest girls and
put them to death. They fell upon the dead and
robbed them of their clothing. Women and girls were
placed in groups of ten ; twenty-five yards from one
another, killed and thrown into a cistern. Not even
the old women were spared. Ten of the prettiest girls
were kept back. A consultation was held between the
Kurds and the soldiers, and the latter decided not to

Michael's story 193

slay the children, but to hand them over to the Arabs
and Kurds of the neighbourhood. Word was sent to
them. They came, made their choice and carried off
their prey.

It was my lot to obtain as my master a Bedouin
Arab named Ahmed. The Turkish sergeant had chosen
another boy for him, but he had shown a preference
for me, and took me to his village, Wardessess, which
lay beyond the railway station of Derbezye near
Mardin. With Ahmed I remained three years, look-
ing after his camels and guiding his cattle when they
were moved from one place to another. I was dressed
by my master in a white robe like the Arabs of the
district, and went barefoot. At the time when the
Bedouin acquired me he was well off, but later he suf-
fered somewhat from poverty. His daughter took
from me a cross and prayer-book, as well as certain
small belongings which I had with me. The prayer-
book she tore up, the rest she kept.

My master's wife was very kind to me, but I was
not happy with them, and ten days after my arrival
tried to run away. A Bedouin woman saw me and
ran to tell my master, who recaptured me. He even

194 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

fired his revolver at me, and the shot grazed my head-
dress. He did not wish to kill me, but only to frighten
me and prevent me from running away another time.

I was given very little to eat, merely some black
bread and a little milk. Tired of living like this, I
began to worry my master, begging him to let me
leave, saying I had relatives at Aleppo, whom I should
like to see.

He was deaf to my appeal, but said he would send
me back to my people at the end of the war. At
length, one day, wearied by my petitions, he seemed
to change his mind. We were taking some goods to
Nisibin. There the Arab recognized by chance two of my
uncles, Alias and Joseph Boyadji, who worked on the
Bagdad line, and told them that he had with him a
nephew of theirs. He asked them to take me away
then and there. My uncle, Alias, wasted no time but
accompanied the Arab into the desert and entered the
tent. He came towards me, but I must have been
much changed, for he did not recognize me at first. I
knew him, however, and embraced him warmly. After
saying good-bye, we left for Nisibin, the Arab*s
daughter, Adla, coming some distance with us in order

LITTLE WAHIDA 195

to obtain a present from my uncle, who gave her
thirty medjidies^ in silver, two large silk shawls, and
some boots and stockings. My uncle kept me for some
time at Nisibin until he found a chance to send me
back to Aleppo."

Little Wahida
About the same time when visiting Mr. Antoun
Roumi at Aleppo, I met Wahida, a little Chaldean girl
of Diarbekir, aged twelve, who was related to Madame
Roumi. Her mother, a survivor of the massacres, had
been unable to support her, her father having been
killed by the Turks and her home plundered. I asked
her to tell me what she had seen and she gave me the
following details:

:|c ^ :(: ^ H< * *

My father, Naoum Abid, was a Municipal Commis-
sioner, who in fear of being killed concealed himself
during the arrests. One day the Patrol came to our
house, and, under pretence of buying brandy, which
we sold, induced us to open the door. They entered,
and, after searching every hole and corner of the

* Thirty dollars.

196 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

house, found my father and carried him away to
prison. Mother and I began to cry.

Some days later a warder came to tell me that my
father wanted to see me. I went to him immediately.
Father kissed me fondly and cried, asking me how
mother and my little brothers, Michael and Suleiman,
were, and how they were bearing up. He cried again
and I did what I could to console him. When I had
been three hours with him, a policeman took me away
from him upstairs to a room in an upper story which
overlooked that in which my father was kept.

Through a window I saw policemen go into his cell
Executioners, armed with clubs, and soldiers who used
the butts of their rifles, struck my father terrible blows
They hit him on the head and made him cry out, and
then gave him many blows with their daggers. They
put out his eyes with a knife which had a sharp point
and cut his stomach open. I wept and cried for a
time and then I opened the door and ran away.

I rushed home, crying, and told my mother what
had happened. She became hysterical and began to
tear out her hair. My little brother ran to tell all our
relatives the terrible news, and all began to mourn.

LITTLE WA,IhIDA 197

Mother, foreseeing what would be in store for us, soon
made plans for us to flee. Like a brave woman, she
gathered all her children together, and by crossing
from one terrace roof to another we finally found a
safe place in which to shelter. In this way she saved
us from death. When the storm had passed we re-
turned home and found that all our furniture had been
stolen.

Not being able to live in an empty house, and hav-
ing no money or other resources, my mother had to
take service in Turkish families at Diarbekir in order
to support us. But not earning enough to feed us, she
was obliged to send some of us to my uncle Petioun,
at Aleppo.

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CHAPTER VIII

The Massacre of Lidja

Naaman Effendi is one of the survivors of the large
and v^ell-knowrn family of Moussa Guerguis Adame of
Sairt. His brothers, cousins and uncles v^ere all mas-
sacred. He himself escaped death ov^ing to the fact
that he v^as the manager of the local office of the
Administration of the Public Debt in the Cata^ of
Lidja, in the Sandjak^ of Maaden Arghane. He is now
at ^Aleppo. I am indebted to him for the followring
account of v^hat happened at Lidja at the time of the

massacre.
*******

Lidja, v^hich is governed by a Kaimakam, is a tow^n
of about tv^elve thousand inhabitants, a seventh of
whom are Christians. It is situated eighteen hours'
journey from Diarbekir.

In the spring of 1915, the Kaimakam, Anisse Bey,
recruited a militia among the Turkish population, ap-

* Administrative district.

^ Subdivisional regions of the Vilayet or province.

200 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

pointed officers and put the regiment through man-
oeuvres.

A few days later the Turkish Government ordered all
arms in the possession of Christians to be collected in the
church, the name of each owner being engraved upon the
weapons, under the pretext that it would be returned.
These arms were then distributed to the militia.

One day on a given signal sentries were posted be-
fore the doors of prominent Christians, patrols
mounted guard to prevent resistance, and all Christian
officials were dismissed by the Kaimakam.

The following day fifty of the more important
Christians were summoned before the Governor and
imprisoned, chiefly out of sheer hatred, but also to
extort confessions. The torture, known as the
" Falaka "^ was inflicted until blood was drawn. This
consisted in beating the soles of the feet. Some had
their hands pierced, particularly wherever they bore
tattoo marks symbolical of Christianity. The finger
nails and beards of others were torn out. I learnt
these details from relatives of the victims, who dis-

Bastinado.

THE MASSACRE OF LID J A 201

covered them in this condition on taking them their
food.

At a later date these unfortunate Christians were
roped arm to arm in couples and taken outside the
town by the militia. Word had been sent to the
Kurds, who met them at Dashta-Gisse, some distance
from Diarbekir. Here they were plundered and put to
death, their bodies being flung into the numerous caves
in the locality.

This task performed, the Turks imprisoned other
Christians, tortured them as they had the earlier vic-
tims and murdered them outside the town after steal-
ing all they had.

A priest I knew well was one of those in the second
convoy. On his way to prison street urchins insulted
him, treating him as they would a beast of burden.
His colleague, a priest, eighty years of age, was tor-
tured in the most terrible manner and executed.

Once again the prisons refilled. Relatives of the
victims were told that the unhappy men could be
saved for a certain payment and rushed home to col-
lect all the money they had. Captain Suleiman
Efîendi in particular enriched himself by this means.

202 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

It was his habit to *' release ** prisoners for two or
three days in order to re-arrest them later.

Thus the town was cleared of all male Christians,
even to boys of ten. The neighbouring villages were
surrounded one by one by Tchettas and Kurds, who
arrested the men, bound them and cut their throats in
the ravines and caverns, after plundering them in the
usual way. The Christians of the region were of the
Armenian or of the Assyro-Chaldean or Jacobite
denomination. Some of the villages whose inhabitants
were put to the sword were: Foum, Chim-Chim,
Djoum, Tappa and Naghle.

After the deportations and massacres, if a Christian
was found in the town, having succeeded in hiding
and so escaping the slaughter, he was immediately put
to death in the street by the populace, who carried his
body as a trophy through the various quarters of the
town. In the fields outside Turkish urchins played
football with the skulls and bones of the Christians.

After all this butchery the Turks took a month's
rest. It was the Feast of Ramazan. As soon as the
month elapsed, however, the deportations recom-
menced with even greater vigour.

THE MASSACRE OF LIDJA 203

This time women and children were carried off, put
to death without pity and thrown into the river, the
girls being taken away by the Kurds and the Turks.
Children who became exhausted from fatigue or hun-
ger on the way were left on the roadside where they
soon died. The more beautiful girls were kept for a
week by the Turkish officials in town and then passed
on to their friends.

It is interesting to note that the former Kaimakam
of Lidji, who had refused to carry out orders to organ-
ize the massacre, was recalled to Diarbekir after the
formation of the first convoy. He was told that he
was to be promoted, but on the way was put to death
by orders of his superiors for lack of enthusiasm in
his work. The Kurds buried him by the roadside and
the executioners on their return to the town gave out
that he had been killed by Armenian revolutionists. I
passed his grave with my family some days later.

The same tragedy was enacted at Henne, a village
six hours' distant, and administered by the Government
at Lidja. It had a Christian population of four hun-
dred families, all of whom were in very easy circum-
stances, many of them having made their fortune in

204 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

America. Here the same scenes took place. All the
men, two or three hours after dark, or at daybreak,
were seized, bound, plundered and then taken to a dis-
tance and massacred. So many ropes were required
for the work that a public crier gave orders that the
townspeople were to provide a stipulated quantity, the
official reason being, however, that it was needed m
the transportation of provisions for the army.

The women who remained alone after the seizure of
their menfolk, assembled in their houses in groups of
twenty or thirty, trembling with terror. In the evening
military patrols entered under pretext of making requisi-
tions, chose the prettiest girls and carried them ofif
by force.

Before the organization of the militia, its future
head, Ibrahim Bey, had come to Diarbekir, to return,
by favour of Rechid, Governor of Diarbekir, with the
rank of Commandant. Absolute obedience in matters
civil and religious was to be required of the soldiers,
but when they enrolled, the populace had not the faint-
est idea of the tasks they would be called upon to
perform.

After massacring the convoys, the Turks returned

THE MASSACRE OF LIDJA 205

to the families of the victims, assuring them that the
Government had reprieved their male relations, who
were now safe in a certain place, but, they added, in
need of money. Thus they obtained new sums. Sev-
eral women even accompanied the soldiers in order
themselves to bring the money to their relatives, only
to be robbed and murdered on the road.

The priest of Foum was arrested and dragged by
the beard through the streets to prison amid the hoot-
ing of the urchins.

The Mayor of Pasur was taken to Lidja under the
pretext that he was killing soldiers who passed
through his village. He was hung up by the feet,
head downwards, until death released him, in the lava-
tory of the Governor's house, at the mercy of those
who used the spot. Kaissarli Said Mohammed Alim
Eiïendi, son of Hadji Ahmed, one of my employes,
gave me the details of this latter incident.

A Christian sergeant named Ohannes, a convert to
Islam, one day went to say his prayers at the Mosque.
Despite his apostasy, he was killed as he emerged.

During the massacre men's heads were attached by
way of ornamentation to trees in the gardens.

206 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

Even the sick were not spared, but were snatched
from their beds and dragged through the streets, their
relatives in great distress accompanying them to give
all possible assistance. The pitiless Turks v^ould not
allow the poor wretches to die at home even.

Turkish matrons* accompanied the female convoys,
asking mothers to entrust their children to them.
Moslem women then robbed the poor little things of
their clothes and abandoned them by the roadside.

4 Lady.

^ {^^^^^^^p^^ _

His Grace, The Archbishop of Djezire
Martyred by the Turks

CHAPTER IX

What Happened at Kharput

At the end of 1918 I met, at Constantinople, Djord-
jis Tournas Keshishe, a business man of Kharput, who
had been an eye witness of the massacres which took
place in that town. I wrote down the following
account, word for word, at his dictation, and, the bet-
ter to authenticate the details of his narrative, obtained
his signature to my notes.

3|C ^ ^ 9{C ^ 3|C 3|»

The Turks commenced by arresting certain men of
note, in particular the schoolmasters. Among others,
they seized Oshous Yussef, Professor at the American
college and editor of the *' Murched,"^ the Assyro-
Chaldean organ of the town. If I remember rightly,
this was at the beginning of May, 1915. Those
arrested were imprisoned for a fortnight. Their houses
were searched, but happily nothing of a compromising
nature was discovered. The dwellings of the Assyro-

Monitor.'

208 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

Chaldeans or Jacobites were also subjected to the same
measure.

Meanwhile, Sabit Bey, Governor of the town, betook
himself to Erzerum, where, on a pretext that there was
an epidemic of typhus, he closed all the schools. From
Erzerum he returned as far as Mezre on a Friday some
days later.

Taking up his quarters at the Seraglio,^ he held a
council which lasted for over an hour, during which
time Christians were forbidden to enter the building.
I happened to be with friends in the courtyard of the
church, where I had hidden to escape military service.
While there I noticed armed soldiers making their
rounds. Towards nine o'clock I saw them leading ofï
an Armenian whom they had arrested. In the even-
ing my little brother Yohanna, a boy seven years of
age, came to see me at the church, saying that my
father was asking for me.

Leaving the church, I discovered to my surprise
that all the Christians I met were in great alarm. I
arrived home to find my aunt and other relations weep-
ing, and learned that my uncle Barsom Keshishe, a

Government House.

WHAT HAPPENED AT KHARPUT 209

tradesman, had been arrested. My father, white as a
sheet, and very much upset and worried, was speech-
less in a corner. Not until an hour later did he break
silence.

" I was in the market place," he told us, " when the
Governor came with the Commandant to Government
House. There they had a long discussion. A quarter
of an hour later the market place was surrounded by
the militia, who picked out all Christians over fourteen
years of age, arrested them and put them in prison;
among them my poor brother Bersom. I managed to
save myself with great difficulty, thanks to Kevork
Agha, who foreseeing that a general arrest was immi-
nent, advised me to flee. A few minutes later he him-
self was arrested, savagely knocked about and taken
to prison. From a distance I witnessed also the arrest
of two brothers, Boghos and Marderos Chatalbashe,
Abraham Tasho and many others. I myself was twice
arrested in the street, but Providence willed that I should
be set at liberty."

Next day about eight o'clock a public crier an-
nounced from the top of the citadel:

" Christians, know that he who does not open his

210 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

shop as usual will be courtmartialled and condemned
to death. Why are you afraid? You run no risk.
Take courage !"

My father having little confidence in the words of
the public crier feared to open his shop. I thought of
going myself, but changed my mind, and my uncle,
taking the keys, went to open the premises.

Before many hours had passed we learnt that all
tradesmen in the market place had been arrested.
During the day police agents and soldiers came to our
house with a list of names on which figured that of
my father whom they intended to apprehend. My
mother went to the door and declared that all the men
were out. As a matter of fact we had all fled by the
roofs to the Bishop's residence, where we found Bishop
Mansour in his room, praying. Since our presence
might cause his arrest, we left his house, my father
taking refuge with Minasse Agha Chatalbashe, and
my cousin and I concealing ourselves in the house of
Ashour Efïendi.

Some time later my mother arrived in tears to say
that the soldiers were coming every few minutes to
worry her, declaring that at all costs they must have

WHAT HAPPENED AT KHARPUT 211

her husband and her sons. They said that they wished
to take my father to Government House to ask him a
few simple questions, after which he would be released.
Fearing that the savages would harm his wife and
family, my father bravely decided to return to the
house. There he met the soldiers who were waiting
to take him. He begged them to allow him to change
his clothing and to embrace his children before he left.
One of my aunts appeared with her baby in her arms.
In her exasperation she said to the soldiers :

" You cowards, you have snatched my husband from
his home to take him to Mezre! Now you want to
take my brother-in-law! Are you not afraid of the
anger of God? What have these innocent people done
that you should treat them in this way? "

'' Do not be anxious ! " hypocritically answered the
soldiers. " Your men will soon be back home."

Meanwhile the populous Christian quarters were
emptied, only a few young people remaining. Almost
all the men were taken to Mezre, where they were
shut up to the number of fifteen hundred in a large
building called " Kirmisi-Konak." No one was allowed

212 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

to speak to them, but their relatives were permitted
to bring them food.

As the Turks said that they only required the Ar-
menians, the Bishop (of the Assyro-Chaldeans), with
two prominent members of his congregation, Elia
Eflfendi Tasho and Bedik Zade Arakel, went to see the
Governor, the Commandant and the Deputy, and
begged them to spare his flock since they were not
Armenians and belonged to no political party. Bedik
Zade, a very influential Moslem, who was present,
asked the Governor with tears in his eyes :

" Why do you treat this unhappy people in this
way ? They are absolutely guiltless ! "

The Governor and his friends then promised to refer
the matter to Constantinople, and obtain pardon for
the Assyro-Chaldean community. Some days later a
favourable reply did come from the central authorities
and thus the Assyro-Chaldeans were spared. In spite
of the order, however, the Governor failed to release
the fifteen hundred of our co-religionists who had al-
ready been apprehended with the Armenians and taken
to Mezre. All, without distinction, were put to death

WHAT HAPPENED AT KHARPUT 213

outside the town. Happily my father was still in
prison at Kharput.

After these events the public crier announced that
the Christian inhabitants of each quarter were to quit
the town in turn and take the road to Urfa. The
Assyro-Chaldeans were to leave on Wednesday. As
my father was " Moukhtar," ^ he was released from
prison to assist in the census of our quarter. On its com-
pletion, notwithstanding the order that the Assyro-Chal-
deans should be spared, he was reincarcerated.

The public crier repeated the order for the deporta-
tions, and the five hundred and fifty-six Armenians
and Assyro-Chaldeans in prison were released to ac-
company their families into exile. By good fortune
the public crier announced one day that the Chaldeans
could remain behind. The happiness of our com-
munity can be imagined. There were rejoicings every-
where, and our leaders visited the Governor and made
him a present of L. T. 500 in gold. At the same time
they begged him to transmit the order of the central
authorities for the sparing of the Assyro-Chaldeans to the
suburbs in which a great many of them lived.

^ Head of his quarter ; i. e., something like an Alderman, ward.

214 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

We next went to see the Mudir* of one of those
suburbs, who had come to town and asked him in view
of the order to spare the Assyro-Chaldean villages. Hop-
ing to gain his favor, we made him presents. He prom-
ised to do so, but on returning to his village the bar-
barian put everyone of them to death, even to the
women and children. In the little town of Adyaman,
hardly a trace of the Christians remained, all of them
having been hacked to death with axes and thrown
into the river which watered the locality. The priests
in particular had been tortured with indescribable
savagery. The following are the names of some of
the places inhabited by the Assyro-Chaldeans : the
town of Malatia and the villages of Chiro, Aiwtos and
Guarguar.

Three months after the tragedy just recounted, the
Governor being absent, all the Assyro-Chaldeans were
rearrested one night and sent to the Kirmisi Konak."
A knock came to our door. It was Abdennour, a fel-
low Christian who wished my father to come to his
house. This he did, and on his return he told us that

* Mayor.

'The Red Palace.

WHAT HAPPENED AT KHARPUT 215

a Turk had been to Abdennour making enquiries for
him. It was a tradesman with whom my father had'
had some dealings, and to whom he owed some money.
This the creditor was hastening to claim as he had
learnt that all the Assyro-Chaldeans were to be ar-
rested next day. My father^s words terrified us, and
we felt that this time all was over. At dawn my
father, my cousin David and I fled and hid at the
bottom of a well, requesting our relatives to dig a
hole and bury all our valuables and merchandise in a
corner of the garden. Every moment we expected the
arrival of the wretches who were to lead us to our
deaths. At length towards mid-day a relation who
was in the secret of our hiding place called down to
us from the opening of the well :

** Come out.

" There is nothing to fear. The massacre of the
Assyrians has been stopped."

During the massacres of Kharput I lost my uncles,
Barsom Keshishe, Boghos and Mardiros; my cousins
Nouri and Ohannes, and also Ashour Youssouf, Dona-
bet and Kework Kerbez, who were otherwise related
to me.

CHAPTER X

Rape, Loot and Murder!

One afternoon a month before I left Aleppo in May,
1918, I paid a visit to the Chaldean Vicariate. While
I was there a lady entered wearing the uniform of a
Red Crescent Hospital Matron. She saluted the
parish priest, and, not knowing Arabic, spoke in
French, I serving as interpreter.

The lady, a Chaldean from Diarbekir, was the
daughter of Zeki Hardji Daoud of that city, and had
just arrived at Aleppo from Caesarea. She told us of
her deportation and long wanderings and sufferings,
and in the course of conversation I learnt that she had
relatives in Aleppo, members of the family of Antoun
Efifendi Roumi, ex-Manager of the Regie^ at Mardin,
one of my friends. I took her to the house of this gen-
tleman, who was surprised to see her at Aleppo, and
whose wife was happy to be able to oflfer her hos-
pitality.

* Manager of Government properties, such as tobacco, salt, etc.

218 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

Learning that I was soon leaving for the capital, the
lady wanted to come with me in order to rejoin her
relations. Consequently the parish priest, Madame
Roumi and I set about trying to obtain her a traveling
permit. In this we succeeded, and I left with her for
Constantinople. I noticed that whenever we passed
through a railway station and saw a police officer she
trembled, fearing once more to fall into their hands.

On our arrival at Constantinople she gave me the
following account of her sufferings, which I here
faithfully record:

The Deposition of Madame Habiba Turkoghlou, a
Chaldean Lady

It was during the afternoon of Saturday, July the
18th, 1918, that we were informed that all Christians
were to be deported from Trebizond. We were at
Totz at the time, a village three hours' journey from
Trebizond, whither my family had fled during the
bombardment of the town by the Russians. Very
much upset by the command, we returned to Trebi-
zond the next day, and were granted four days in
which to make our preparations for deportation.

THE DEPOSITION OF MADAME HABIBA 219

At that time Dr. Crawford, a missionary, was sta-
tioned at Trebizond as Director of the American Col-
lege. To him and his wife a large number of families
turned, begging them to take care of their children
during their absence. After strenuous efforts, he
obtained permission from the Vali, Djemal Asmi.^
The parents paid the necessary amount for the sup-
port of their children, and even left their jewels in
Dr. Crawford's care. Dr. Crawfoid also tried to pro-
tect a number of young women by admitting them
under the guise of teachers.

But, even in the American College, these children
were not safe.

The whole town was terror-stricken. The Chris-
tians were in tears, and their cries resounded every-
where. Trebizond was a city of mourning. A crowd
of breathless women was running about the streets,
pursued by soldiers deaf to their prayers. The men
had been torn from their homes and taken to a monas-
tery called Astvazatzin. On the 13th of July, five
days before the order for the deportation, all men who
were Russian subjects and all the members of the

^ Vali, in Turkish, corresponds to Governor.

220 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

Tashnaktzagan Committee were collected and placed
on board a motor-boat, treated with great harshness,
and told that they were to be taken to Sinope or Con-
stantinople to be tried by courtmartial. All were men
of position. Once well out to sea, they were thrown
overboard and drowned. We learnt of their sad end
when some days later we found about four hundred
of their bodies on the seashore.^

This awful tragedy threw the inhabitants into a
condition of indescribable terror. In their desperation
some burnt their houses ; others threw themselves into
wells, and many committed suicide by jumping from
roofs and windows. Not a few, some women among
them, lost their reason. They knew, poor wretches,
that their turn would come inevitably, and that they
would be put to death without pity.

We ourselves were advised by Madame Hekimian,
whose husband was an army doctor, to leave our child
with the American mission. She promised to look
after it well, since, being the wife of a soldier, she
had the right to remain. We followed her advice, I

'A number of boats set out from Trebizond in this way
packed with men. They invariably returned a few hours later
absolutely empty.

THE DEPOSITION OF MADAME HABIBA 221

in person leaving my little Dico, then a baby of fifteen
months, at the mission with a sum of money to defray
the expense of his keep.

On the night of this fatal day some Turkish mer-
chants came to our house and had an important secret
interview with my husband. The mysterious confer-
ence lasted half an hour, after which my husband came
to me and said : " We have found a means of saving
ourselves; by embracing Islam.''

His words made me speechless with anger. ** Never
shall I become Mussulman ! " I cried. " You are free
to deny your faith if you will."

All my family tried to persuade me. My husband,
quite broken down, asked me tearfully :

'' Do you want to be the cause of our losing all? "

I arose much moved and went to see the Turkish
merchants in the adjoining room. They in their turn
tried to convince me.

" Come to your senses and save your family," they
urged.

.These men are now in Constantinople. Their names
are Osman Loutfi and Osman Efifendi Keurzade.

222 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

I told them my final answer was that I would rather
die than deny my faith.

" I leave my husband free to adopt your religion,"
I added, *' but, for my own part, I refuse to become a
Mohammedan."

Reminding us of what the Turks had had to sufïer
at the hands of the Christians, according to their story,
the men departed after warning us that the former
would certainly and cruelly revenge themselves upon
the latter.

On Thursday, 21st June,^ early in the morning, we
learned that the houses of the Christians had been sur-
rounded by the soldiers in order to prevent all inter-
communication between them. From this we realized
that the hour of our sad fate had struck. Foreseeing
that we should be deported, we made our preparations
accordingly. Meanwhile the order came for us to quit
our homes. We left the house, and my husband, hav-
ing a presentiment of what was to befall us, cried like
a child. Friends of the Committee of Union and Prog-

*0n Thursday, 1st July, all streets were guarded by soldiers
with fixed bayonets and the carrying off of the Armenians from
their houses began. (Treatment of the Armenians in the Otto-
man Empire. Lord Bryce.)

THE DEPOSITION OF MADAME HABIBA 223

ress^ consoled us, saying that we would return soon.

A large convoy was formed and we started. Some
of the poor victims carried blankets on their shoulders,
others mattresses, in fact all kinds of household goods
and utensils. Our first stop was at Déguïrmendéré,
half an hour outside the town, where we caught up
with thousands of men and women who had preceded
us. The soldiers obliged us to march on foot, pre-
venting us from making use of carriages or other
means of transit. Two officers were in charge of the
convoy. Captain Bechiktachli Aguah Bey, a man of
thirty or thirty-three years of age, and the Lieutenant,
Trahzounli Hadji-Khalil Zade Faik Bey, about
twenty-five.^

^ The Head of the Committee at Trebizond was Nail Bey.

*" Treatment of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire," by
Lord Bryce — Blue Book, page 299. Extract from an interview
with Comm. G. Gorrini, late Italian Consul-General at Trebi-
zond, who left Trebizond on July the 23rd, 1915, in the interval
between the Italian declarations of war against Austria-Hungary
and against Turkey.

" It was a real extermination and slaughter of the innocents^
an unheard-of thing, a black page stained with flagrant viola,-
tions of the most sacred rights of humanity, of Christianity, ot
nationality. There were about fourteen thousand Armenians at
Trebizond — Gregorians, Catholics and Protestants. They had
never created disorders, nor given the police any occasion for
anxiety.

" When I left Trebizond, not a hundred of them remained."

224 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

Those who composed the convoy were searched
before it set out. Even small penknives were taken
from us on the ground that they were weapons. The
ruffians told us that these ofïences to our modesty
were nothing compared to what the Bulgarians had
done to their women.

Orders were brought to the effect that the officers
in charge were to get us to Djeziré in the Province
of Diarbekir, and to do it within twelve hours. This
meant that we were to be killed on the way, since it
was manifestly impossible that the journey could be
accomplished in that time, Djeziré being more than a
month's march on foot.

On the Road to Calvary

We left Déguïrmendéré at four o'clock in the even-
ing, in a torrent of rain. Our convoy numbered over
5,000. We were escorted by soldiers, who herded us
like a flock of sheep. In the lead was Captain Aguah
Bey, while Faik Bey brought up the rear of the sad
procession of terror and death.

Four hours' walking brought us to Hadji-Mehmed.
It was still raining when we halted at a small café at

ON THE ROAD TO CALVARY 225

the path which leads from Trebizond to Erzerum.
There we were separated from the men and gathered
together in groups. I entered the café with Madame
Mari Arabian, a woman who had also left her child
at the American Mission, and there we passed the
night. She was in a condition of complete nervous
collapse. During the night I saw her raise herself
with a start, and, unbuttoning her dress in a mechan-
ical way, present her breast to the baby she thought
she had at her side. Almost delirious, she then sighed
and fell asleep, making a movement as if she were
kissing her child. This touching scene of motherly
tenderness upset me so much that, thinking of my
own baby, likewise confided to the care of the mission,
I could not refrain from weeping.

The men who had been seized at Trebizond and
shut up in the monastery at Astvazatzin, on May 1st,
rejoined us at this point and were added to our con-
voy. At eight in the morning we started ofï again
and gained a road between two streams, some hours
from Hadji Mehmed. Some of the younger prisoners
in despair threw themselves into the water and were
drowned. Midday saw us at Yessir Oghlou. There

226 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

were a few carriages there, and by means of bribery
the few children with us were put into them to be
sent back and placed in charge of the American
Mission.

At four o'clock we left Yessir-Oghlou, numbering
then about six thousand men and women, and reached
Boklou-Khan on foot. At this place three or four
women lost their reason owing to the description the
soldiers, with exquisite cruelty, gave of the sufferings
in store for us.

Hateful as these butchers were to us, we were
obliged to care for the comfort of the two officers in
charge, offering them every kind of food and drink
which we possessed.

Leaving at eight o'clock next morning, we contin-
ued our journey all day on foot, rain falling for an
hour and a half. At three in the afternoon we arrived
at Zeghané, a telephone station at the foot of a snow-
capped mountain of the same name. Our guards
wished to compel us to pass the night there, but the
officers of whom we took so much care listened to our
incessant petitions and allowed us to pass the night
in the shelter of a village an hour ahead. Here the

ON THE ROAD TO CALVARY 227

whole convoy proceeded. For L. 7'^ we obtained
refuge in houses, and the bakery was opened so that
we might buy bread. Our family and nine others
were permitted to stay in a so-called hotel, an old
tumble-down house.

That evening at nine o'clock the lieutenant sent for
my husband and asked him to act as an intermediary
in a rather delicate matter. He had fallen madly in
love with Keghanoushe Arabian, and wished my hus-
band to intercede with her relatives on his behalf.
This request was a hidden command, and had to be
obeyed. Finally, as a way out of the difficulty, my
husband replied that the matter did not depend on
him, and that the officer himself could address the
parents of the girl next day. We were puzzled how
to act in the matter, and could not sleep all night, for
if the matter fell through we were lost. Next day
we held a family council and agreed to give up the
girl, thinking that this might help the rest.

We passed a night at Keuprui-Bachi, and, in the
morning, started for Daldaban. Keghanoushe was
handed over to the officer, who returned with her to

' $35.00.

228 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

Trebizond, accompanied by Madame Gaizak Arabian
and Madame Kelerian, who had each given L. T. 500^
to accompany her.

We noticed that our two officers had disappeared. The
soldiers turned back and ordered the drivers of the
vehicles to stop. Fearing some danger, I got out and
advised my husband to do likewise, but he refused.
Twenty soldiers surrounded me and ordered me to get
in again. They pushed me, dragged me by the arms and
even threatened me with their bayonets. My terror got
the better of me, and I became violently ill. Seeing me
in this state, one of the soldiers, by way of helping me,
made me rejoin the convoy. I had to walk, and became
separated from the carriages, the occupants of which
were robbed of their money by the soldiers.

On our arrival at Daldaban, after a march of three
hours, we were assailed by urchins, who, seated on gar-
den walls, threw stones, dung and every kind of filth
at us. Women stoned us, screaming in their hatred :

" Get along, you Christian pigs ! You are being prop-
erly treated now ! "

'$2,500 American money.

ON THE ROAD TO CALVARY 229

As we came to the foot of the mountain we noticed
that it was occupied by the Tchettas, brigands, who
intended to take our lives. With them was the Mutes-
sarif ® of Gumush-Hawe, a place half an hour's journey
distant, with his staff. The Tchettas, aided by soldierr,,
closed in upon us, and the commanding officer ordered
the men to be separated from the women. The officers,
who had disappeared at the time the occupants of the
carriages were being plundered, now reappeared, and,
falling upon us hke hyenas, separated us from the men
with the utmost violence, even using the butts of their
rifles.

Our sufferings and misery were at their height. After
all the privations we had undergone; the bestial sights
at which we had been present; the violations, murders
and massacres we had witnessed, we were physical
wrecks, and our whole nervous systems broke down.
The separation of the men from the women was the last
straw. We plodded along like cattle, brainless, stoically
waiting to be finished, or begging God to end our sad
existence by death.

The savage separation, or rather sorting out, of men

Deputy-Governor.

230 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

and women gave occasion for a thousand scenes, each
more cruel than the other. When the male flock had
been herded at some distance from our convoy, the
brigands, ready for their work of slaughtering whole
Christian populations, approached us and searched our
baggage and belongings for rope and string. With these
cords they tied the men in couples, arm to arm, and led
them away. Frozen with horror, knowing that they
went to their death, we tore our hair and many fainted.
Our dear comrades continued their dreadful journey to
the place of slaughter, where fifteen hundred were shot.
But our martyrdom did not end with this. It had
but begun. The butchers, proud of their work, returned
in our direction. Soldiers drove us along like beasts
into wild, open country, where, in some places, we
noticed ruined houses. Nor did they even give us time
to take our belongings. The cowards, knowing that we
were at their mercy, and that no voice, however feeble,
could be raised in our defense, subjected us to the most
awful sufferings. The blows we received were nothing
to the thrusts, which flung us down, bruised and
wounded, upon the ground. One person, whose leg was
broken, was actually ordered to arise and continue the

ON THE ROAD TO CALVARY 231

march. It was asking the impossible. But the sufferer
had to attempt it, or die under the blows of rifle butts
and bludgeons.

I need not speak here of the attempts made against our
honour.

Crowded together in this wild spot, and starving, for
we had had nothing to eat, three thousand of us spent
the night in a penetrating drizzle, the sky our roof, the
wet ground our bed. In our despair we moaned and
wept, losing courage more and more.

Even during the night we were persecuted. Armed
police filed through our ranks, using electric torches to
find the most beautiful among us, and carrying them off
for their orgies. Young girls, after being taken to a
distance, were often massacred, after having been
assaulted. Two or three hours' later the soldiers returned
to seek other young women. At a loss to invent other
means to make us suffer further, they would not even
let us retire to a distance to satisfy the needs of nature.
Not even the days of Nero saw horrors carried out with
such extreme cruelty.

On the morning after this awful night we suddenly
saw Madame Kalarian, her child, and Madame Arabian

232 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

run breathless and terror-stricken out of a garden, as if
they were being pursued. (It will be remembered that
these women had paid a large sum for permission to
leave the convoy). When she reached us, Madame
Kalarian was at the end of her strength. She was ready
to fall from starvation. All we could find to ofïer her
was a piece of dry bread. This being insufficient to
restore a woman in her state, one of my companions
offered her her breast. This the poor woman took grate-
fully, and this restored her strength, as it would that of
a little child. We were greatly touched. The officer, for
fear of being compromised, had released Madame Kala-
rian and Madame Arabian, who had fallen into the
hands of the Governor, who had put them through a
series of questionings. He had them shut up in a room
with police agents, who had subjected them to the most
shameful outrages. Keghanoushe, the young so-called
wife of the officer, had been kept by the Mutessarif as a
prostitute. The poor child was only fourteen years
of age.

One hundred and fifty girls and ten teachers belonging
to a group of young women confided to the care of the
American Mission, had been deported from Trebizond

ON THE ROAD TO CALVARY 233

with a number of boys from fifteen to nineteen years of
age. Four days afterwards some of the more handsome
girls were chosen and carried oiï. The remainder,
together with the boys, were shot down there and then,
or otherwise done to death.

At 8 o'clock the convoy left the desolate spot. It was
now composed only of women, all the men having been
put to death. Lest we had not suffered sufficiently, Turk-
ish and Kurdish women and children accompanied us,
with all kinds of buffoonery, chasing us along the sides
of the road.

Eventually we reached a mill, after a three-hours'
march. Captain Aghah Bey was no longer with us, hav-
ing left us when our men were taken away. The lieu-
tenant, who had rejoined us, however, came with two
Tchettas and searched us all. I was the first victim. I
had L. T. 320 on me, my mother-in-law had L. T. 200,
and my sister-in-law L. T. 200, in addition to our jew-
elry. All this money belonged to me, but I had dis-
tributed it among my relatives in order that it might be
carried more easily. Having taken everything, Lieuten-
ant Falk Bey, in derision, gave me sixty paras (three-
pence) for expenses, and promised to return me my

234 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

money at Erzindjan. In this way, he said, it would not
be stolen by the brigands, who infested the country
through which we were to pass.

During the search, we had to suffer a thousand cruel-
ties, receiving the usual blows with rifle butts, and our
hair being torn from our heads. One of my former
pupils at the school at Trebizond, where I had taught
from 1911 to 1913, before my marriage, had her two
plaits completely torn out. Several women were entirely
stripped, under pretence of being searched. Many
swallowed their gold in order to use it later.

Early in the proceedings, when they came to search
me, they said :

" When your husband was being bound, in order that
he might be put to death, he admitted that you had all
the money on you. He told us to take it from you, so
you had better give it to us if you wish to save his
life."

It was only a trick to obtain my money.

In the evening, after the search, we left the mill, m a
disgusting state of dirt, not having washed since we left
Trebizond. Sleeping on the bare ground and thinned by
privations, we were veritable human rags.

ox THE ROAD TO CALVARY 235

While we were skirting the river near the mill a woman
named Madame Katchian tried to drown herself by jump-
ing into the water. She was pulled out.

As we left a village, its inhabitants followed, shouting
insults after us and throwing stones.

" Get along, get along," they cried. " You are all
going to be exterminated soon."

They snatched from the envoy by force fifty girls and
women and carried them off. We noticed the bodies of
several men and young people stuck in the mud at the
edge of this same river. They had been stripped. They
probably belonged to Baibourt, chief town of the
Province of Trebizond, and had been put to death in this
way."

By six o'clock we were at a large village named
Keussa, when we saw a considerable number of men
shut up in a mosque and in yards, guarded by soldiers.
Their isolation from their families caused them acute
suffering, and, on seeing us, they called to us and waved

^''At this time there were to be seen daily floating down the
river Yel-Deirmeni to the sea numerous mutilated bodies com-
pletely stripped, among them those of women whose breasts had
been cut off. " Treatment of the Armenians," p. 293, by Lord
Bryce.

236 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

their handkerchiefs from the windows. They wished to
communicate with us by letter, but it was impossible to
get near them.

We were crowded into large yards kept for cattle.
Suddenly we heard a bang. It was the explosion of a
bomb. Lieutenant Faik told us, for our consolation,
that they were killing some men after the German sys-
tem. This was to line men up in files of ten and fire
one shot through all ten ; and also to gather a number of
men together in a room and then destroy it with a bomb.

" The explosion you have just heard," he remarked,
" means that a good number have been executed."

Terrified, and expecting the same fate, we wept, tore
out our hair, and, hoping thus to disfigure ourselves,
even our eyelashes and eyebrows. The madness of
despair had taken possession of us.

On the Mountain of Sebicore

In the morning at 8 o'clock Faik Bey appeared and

called out, " Haide, merchandise hazirlansin " ** and left

with nearly five thousand other deported villagers, women,

children and old men. At 10 a. m. a panic arose in the

Get ready the merchandise. We are off."

ON THE MOUNTAIN OF SEBICORE 237

convoy. Cries of despair were heard everywhere. We
believed that the slaughter had begun. Like a frightened
herd, we scattered on each side of the road, running into
the ploughed fields. I was plodding through the sticky
soil when I discovered that in my wild rush I was
tramping under foot a poor little baby. I shall never
forget the screams of the unfortunate mite. Several
infants had been abandoned in this way when their
mothers had to take to flight. Some, indeed, foreseeing
their tragic end, to stave off a lingering death, had pro-
vided themselves with poison.

The soldiers chased us with bayonets and obliged us
to assemble again, saying we had nothing to fear. In
our terror we found it impossible to believe them. We
learned eventually, however, that the cause of the panic
was the pillaging of the poor peasants who had just
joined us, and that their cries had caused the trouble.
Many in despair during the panic had swallowed poison,
some of whom died.

In this state of terror we continued our journey, and
came to the mountain of Sebicore. It took an hour and
a half to climb it. Two hundred of the villagers, who
brought up the rear with their carts, were first despoiled

238 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

and then killed by the soldiers. Likewise several per-
sons, after being plundered, were murdered and thrown
down the slope of the hill. When we reached at last the
summit of the mountain a troop of fifty soldiers from
the barracks which guarded the Erzindjan Road, threw
themselves upon us and relieved us of the rest of our
belongings, scarfs and utensils. They treated in the
same way the villagers of the new convoy.

During the night the soldiers profited by the oc-
casion to steal women and girls, with whom they went
ofï into the mountains.

Next day at 8 a. m. we restarted, not, however, by
the mountain path but over the rocks. Although hun-
gry and dying of thirst we were not allowed to drink
at a spring we passed. Our feet were swollen and
began to bleed, as we were barefoot. On arriving at
the foot of the mountain half an hour's journey from
Erzindjan, we stopped in a meadow worn out and in-
capable of suffering further, we cried out :

" Kill us all here. We can do no more. We do
not wish to live. We want to die." Our appeal was
unheeded, and we passed the day and the night" where
we were. Turks from the neighbourhood came to

ON THE MOUNTAIN OF SEBICORE 239

trade with us and to sell us food. Bread cost L. T. P^
a small loaf, and a glass of water twenty piastres.

Next day we crossed the town amidst the shouts
and insults of the people, who stoned and spat upon
us. One Turkish lady, however, it is a matter of note,
threw us from her roof many loaves of bread, and,
assisted by little girls and children, by means of cords
lowered us pails of water to quench our thirst. When
v/e thanked her warmly she replied:

" My friends, I am doing no more than my duty."

The convoy camped in the Christian cemetery of
the town, where the soldiers sold the girls to the
Turkish and Kurdish civilians for from five to ten
piastres each.^^

Fifteen days had now elapsed since we left Trebi-
zond. We found the Christian quarter in Erzindjan
had been completely destroyed. Only ruins remained.
The enormous cemetery was filled with the remains of
deported victims from convoys which had passed
before us. On the ground lay scattered in many
places scalps, arms and feet.

Approximately $5.00.
From 25 to 50 cents.

240 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

Further out on the plain we saw those who had
been deported from Erzerum, all the men in magnifi-
cent tents. Near them, and well treated, were their
horses and their wagons.

Sobs were heard throughout our convoy as we saw
these men alive and comfortable, while our husbands
had been killed and we ourselves reduced to so ter-
rible a state.

The men of Erzerum soon came to us with large
sacks of bread, meat and cheese, which they distrib-
uted among us. I was given two loaves by M. Kos-
rof, an employee of a branch depot of a company
formed at Trebizond by my husband and two other
merchants. I recognized him and it cut me to the
heart to be obliged to accept alms from one of our
former employes.

Many women in despair made their way into the town
and gave themselves up to the Turks to become wives or
servants in their harems. Others were taken off to
houses of ill fame, which had been opened by the Gov-
ernor since the deportations.

Next day, towards evening, we heard a noise in the
distance and found its origin to be the convoy com-

ON THE MOUNTAIN OF SEBICORE 241

ing from Trebizond, which had left a day after we had,
and which now joined us at the cemetery. In its
ranks were many girls who had been left with the
American missionaries, among them my sister-in-law.
They told us that they had suffered on the way the
same treatment and atrocities as ourselves.

We left the town at 7 p. m. and halted an hour and
a half later between the mountain and the Euphrates.
At eleven Kurds fell upon us and stole whatever we
still had, once again making off with women and girls.
During this time Faik Bey, indifferent to what was
happening under his eyes, was occupied two paces
away in preparing a meal, two girls from the convoy
at his side.

In the morning some of the women and girls who
had managed to escape from the Kurds, rejoined the
convoy before we departed. On the way we saw in-
numerable bodies in the Euphrates, at this place the
river to a width of over thirty feet was tinged with
blood. The sight terrified us.

At midday ten Tchettas followed us on horseback,
and, carving a way through the convoy with their
huge knives, made ofï with some of the girls. Again

242 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

the unhappy convoy became a prey to panic. Some
threw themselves into the river, but, afraid to die,
swam back. Others hid themselves in the mountains
and rejoined us when the brigands had disappeared.
One woman, at the end of her strength, cried out in
Turkish :

" Allah sen Yetish !" 1*

At these words a soldier took a large stone and
threw it at her head, saying:

" Kiafir, Khenzir, Gaour, allahin Var issa seni kour-
tarsin." ^^

Before we reached Kamakh at the bridge of Adjem
Keuprusu, the Mudir of Gemerek arrived, dressed as
a Tchetta. He gave full power and liberty of action
to the police agents, who thereupon began their foul
work upon us. The Mudir himself carried off Gayane
Gotoghian, a girl who was related to my husband, of
whom Faik Bey made him a present. I remember
particularly, also, the mother of six children. Some
of the soldiers carried her off to ill treat her. She

" " My God, come Thou to our help ! "

" " You vile infidel ! You dog of a Christian ! If you have a
God, let him come and deliver you."

ON THE MOUNTAIN OF SEBICORE 243

defended herself, and in their fury they seized her
with her children and threw them all in the river,
where they were drowned.

At Kamakh ten other persons and I petitioned Faik
Bey to leave us in the town to work and sew so that
we could get a loaf of bread a day to keep us from
starvation. But our request was not granted. Faik
Bey was worrying about getting away to his fiancee,
Miss Arabian. For the purpose, he had a permit
made out for himself, stating that he was ill, and left,
taking with him his fiancee's two sisters, after pre-
viously muffling them in veils.

A corporal, Mahmoud-Onbachi of Riza, then took
command of the convoy. He had been imprisoned
for theft, but had been released and attached to the
deportation units. Now his own master, he and his
soldiers gave themselves up to every kind of im-
morality and barbarity at the expense of the women
and girls.

We left Kamakh, and after being attacked on the
road by a troop of Kurds, came at dusk to a spot full
of briars and thorns. Here we were obliged to spend
the night under the stars. I was now in a state of

244 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

Utter terror and without food or drink. I had lost
sight of my mother-in-law and sister-in-law, but dared
not look for them for fear of being seized by a soldier.

Early in the morning we took to the road again.
To appease our hunger we pulled up weeds and roots
and ate them, while to staunch our thirst we threw
ourselves like a flock of sheep upon a muddy little
babbling rivulet, whose waters were heated by the
rays of the sun. Again we started after a few min-
utes' respite.

Corporal Mehmed then demanded of us my sister-
in-law that he might work his wicked will upon her,
threatening to take her life if we refused. On receiv-
ing our definite refusal he said:

" I shall know where to find her. Give me a piastre.
The cartridge with which I shall kill the wretch will
cost that much."

As Mehmed was momentarily occupied with other
matters we profited by the delay to disguise my sister-
in-law as a peasant, covering up her head lest he
should recognize her.

It must be remembered that all who lingered on the
road were put to death. The vicinity through which

A RAY OF HOPE 245

we were now passing was littered with corpses, frag-
ments of human bodies, leg bones and putrefying
skulls, indicative of the passage of other convoys
before our own.

At nightfall we reached a mountainous place where
the soldiers alarmed us by telling us that we should
be attacked and killed by the Tchettas, adding, how-
ever, that they would protect us if we gave them
money. I got up in the night and, under cover of the
darkness, made a collection. We gave the money to
the soldiers and continued our journey in the morning.

A Ray of Hope

When we arrived at Mezguep-Tchai, between Egin
and Kharput, a spot between two mountains, the
gendarmes fired their rifles into the air, and even on
the convoy, simply for their own amusement. A troop
of ten Tchettas called " Mangha," under the command
of their chief, Saadi Bey, nephew of Ahmed Riza Bey,
appeared on the mountainside. A soldier chosen by
Saadi Bey, as public crier, announced that by order
of the Minister of the Interior,^® those women who

At that time Talaat Bey.

246 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

knew a trade were to separate from the others and go
to Kamakh. Fifteen other women and myself were
engaged as dressmakers and sent to the town. Many
others cried and begged us to get them engaged by
interceding with the Kaimakam, Sub-Governor, but
they were asking what was impossible. I left the
convoy with regret and parted from my relations with
tears. We made the journey in a single night/^ being
forced to run almost all the time lest it should be seen
that women of the convoy were re-entering the town.

At Kamakh we were handed over to a rich Turk,
Halil Bey, a Deputy of Erzindjan, who had become
chief of the brigand Tchettas of this region, who were
charged with the duty of killing all the men of Erze-
rum and Kamakh. He gave us a room in his house
where we slept four nights on the boards without
bed or blankets. We gained our livelihood by sew-
ing, being subjected to daily mental torture by the
anything but assuring news which was given us as
to our fate.

Three days after our coming to Kamakh there

Normally a three days' journey.

A RAY OF HOPE 247

arrived a convoy of a thousand little children, with
some girls and young v^omen. This convoy, which
was composed of the children left with the American
Mission, had numbered when it left Trebizond, five
thousand children from three to ten years of age. The
poor little things, having made the whole journey on
foot, were ill and in a pitiable state. Many had died
from sickness and exhaustion on the road. The
unhappy little innocents, frail and defenceless, what
a martyrdom they suffered at the hands of their cow-
ardly executioners! The sick were placed in one
room. The rest were condemned to set out again on
foot. We remained forty days in Kamakh, daily wit-
nessing the arrival of convoys of deported.

One day we heard that the Governor of Erzerum,
Tahsin Bey, and the Sub-Governors of Erzindjan and
Gumushkhana were coming to dine with the Deputy
of Kamakh, in whose house we lived. My com-
panions and I were ordered to make the necessary
preparations and to lay the table. When we entered
the dining-room we saw exposed in the room the beard

248 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

of the Archbishop of Erzerum, with the skin torn from
his face. The Deputy had perpetrated the horrible
outrage upon the Archbishop to revenge himself
because he said the prelate had slighted him on the
occasion of a visit paid to Kamakh. The Archbishop
in passing with him through the streets of the town
had preceded him. This the Deputy considered a
lack of respect.

The Deputy had in his house seven large chests of
empty cartridge belts. All the bullets had been used
for the slaughter of Christians, and the ex-Deputy
kept these trophies as a souvenir of his exploits. The
chests had been sent, it was said, by the Committee
of Union and Progress, and the wife of the Deputy
showed all this to the guests with pride. During the
dinner one of those who had been invited declared
that in February, 1916, all the Christian soldiers work-
ing in the trenches had been brought to a place two
hours from Kamakh and there put to death.

This is not the last of these horrifying details. Here
is another characteristic act of goodness on the part
of a magistrate. The majority of the sick children
abandoned in the town were wandering through the

A RAY OF HOPE 249

Streets in search of a morsel of bread. The Judge of
Kamakh said that they were ragged and unpleasant
to see and had them all thrown into the Euphrates.

As regards ourselves, among other trials we were
solicited every day to become converts to Islam and
marry Turks. One morning they insisted and threat-
ened us, and half of us were sent back to the convoy.
Being in some danger myself, I fled and took refuge
in the house of the Deputy. I knew that he would
protect me, as I had rendered him many services with
my needle and in the management of his household.

During our stay at Kamakh every time a convoy
passed my companions and I covered our faces with
our veils and approached to see if by chance among its
victims there were any of our own relatives.

One day a group of soldiers came to the yard. We
approached them and heard groans from the fiat roof
above. On mounting thereto we found a young officer ill
from typhus, lying in the snow, his limbs frozen and gan-
grenous. He was a chemist from Constantinople,
named Armenak Papazian. Delighted to see Chris-
tians again, he begged us to save him. Every even-

250 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

ing, he said, Turks came and threatened to throw him
into the river. In spite of the great danger we our-
selves ran, we decided to save the young man, and,
taking a woman's dress with us, went to him and
robed him in it, bringing him away to the stable of a
Turk whose wife was an Armenian. She begged her
husband to take him in, and for twenty days we
tended him. He recovered from the typhus, but gan-
grene having spread in all his limbs, the poor man died
in atrocious suffering.

The Turk had agreed to keep him on the premises
in the hope that some day his guest might be able to
do him some service. Learning of his death, and
fearing that it would be discovered that he had given
protection to a Christian, he called upon us to take
the remains away immediately, threatening us with
the police. We implored him to wait until dark. At
dusk, with a woman friend, I carried the body of the
poor Christian into the yard where we lived, which
was adjacent to that in which he lay. During the
night we dug a grave eighteen inches deep and buried
young Papazian, saying some prayers over his grave

A RAY OF HOPE 251

for the repose of his soul. Dogs, attracted by the
smell of the body, came and scratched up the earth.
Fearing to be discovered, we then took some large
stones and threw them upon the grave the better to
safeguard the poor man's body from profanation.

I lived for eleven months at Kamakh, ever in a state
of misery, perpetually seeking for a relation among
the people who formed the convoys passing through
the town. On the 15th of February a woman who
had been deported came to me and said that some girls
from Trebizond, named Arabian, were in prison and
wished to see me. Without loss of time I muffled
myself in a " tcharchaf "^^ and went to them. One
was Keghanouche, who had been betrayed by Faik
Bey. The latter having been eventually court-mar-
tialled, the girls had been forced to rejoin the convoy.
We found them in a pitiable state owing to the out-
rages they had suffered on the road at the hand of the
soldiers. Thanks to the support of the Deputy, we
were able to save them and keep them with us. We
became separated later, and I do not know v/hat has
since become of them.

" Turkish veil.

252 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

My Little Dico

Notwithstanding" my own preoccupations and suf-
ferings, I had never forgotten the baby I left at Trebi-
zond. A month after I came to Kamakh I began to
write to a Turkish doctor called Mehmed Aouni, who
had gone to the American Missionaries and had taken
my little Dico into his home and adopted him. I
wrote to him without receiving a reply, then sent tele-
gram after telegram, but without result. The doctor
remained deaf. One day I learnt that Aouni had left
for Constantinople, taking my child with him.

Erzerum fell on the 16th of February, IÇlô.^*^ The
Kurds attacked the town of Kamakh. The Turks,
however, spread the report that it was assailed by the
Christians, who were abetting the Kurds in their mis-
deeds. This caused our persecutors to redouble their
rage against us. Mussulmans, flying before the Rus-
sians, took refuge in Kamakh, and the panicstricken
inhabitants began to forsake the town. Meanwhile
the Red Crescent was installed there, and tired of life
and worried to death I decided to put in a petition to
be allowed to enter the Red Crescent Hospital as a

To the Russians.

MY LITTLE DICO 253

nurse, hoping little by little to be able to reach Con-
stantinople and see my child again.

My request was granted, and I joined the staff of
the institution, of which I became later the matron.
I did everything I could to have other Christian
women with me, and was able to engage ten whom I
either picked up in the streets where they were dying
of hunger or whose release from prison I brought
about.

A month and a half after I entered the hospital
orders were given to remove it to Caesarea. We left,
wearing Turkish veils in order not to be molested by
the Turks. Our sixteen days' journey took us
through districts which, formerly flourishing centres
peopled by Christians, were now only ruins. I counted
more than twenty such settlements of which the chief
were: Korou-Tchai, Zara, Sivas, Kodjy-Hissar, Shar-
Kishla, the tomb of the women and girls of Samsoun,
Gemerek, and others.

We arrived at length at Caesarea, through which we
passed to reach Zindjirdere, a village one hour and a
half beyond the town. Here before the war a young

254 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

Swiss lady, Mile. Kerber, had opened an immense
orphanage, which was the home of five thousand boys.
She left for Switzerland at the beginning of the Euro-
pean War, and her former pupils for the most part were
exterminated by the Turks. Most of the furniture of
the establishment was stolen, and the huge and comfort-
able building was transformed into a hospital. Doctor
Burhaneddine, head of the Red Crescent Hospital, in
which I worked, and of which I have been made matron,
treated us with great consideration. Touched and en-
couraged by his kindness, one day I expressed to him my
astonishment at seeing a Turk treat Christians so well at
such a time as this.

Surprised by the boldness of my statement, he replied :
" It is the Red Crescent Society which compels us to
be affable towards the nurses ; but I am a Young Turk,
and, if it rested with me, I should have exterminated
every Christian, even all the children as well, until not
one remained."

A fortnight later this miserable Young Turk doctor
was charged with having stolen L. T. SOOO.^^ He left

"$15,000.

Habiba in Her Uniform as Matron of the
Military Hospital

MY LITTLE DICO 255

for Constantinople, and was replaced by Dr. Salaheddine
Bey.

After Dr. Burhaneddine's departure, I learned that he,
as if we belonged to him, had promised us to his friends,
that we might serve as playthings in their Bacchanalian
orgies. As soon as I heard this I put on my Turkish
veil and boldly went to the house of the Sub-Governor,
whom I apprised of the facts, declaring that we should
be obliged to put an end to our days rather than give
ourselves to these brutes. Luck and our courage alone
saved us in our difficulty, for the Sub-Governor, being
hand in glove with the doctor's friends, we could hope
no good from him.

I was consumed with a lingering desire to see my
child again. I longed to cover him with kisses. It was
for him that I lived and endured my martyrdom. While,
indeed, I had taken service with the Red Crescent, it
was only because I foresaw that this institution was a
stage by which I could reach my little Dico, whom I
wished to snatch from the hands of Dr. Aouni.
Despite the fact that the doctor had written to me in the
month of June — the only letter I had received from
him — that my child had died of dysentery, and that he

256 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

had been buried at Tchoroum, my maternal instinct told
me that my baby lived. Nevertheless, doubts sometimes
overcame me.

The Governor of Sivas, who was on his way to Cae-
sarea, was invited one day to dine at the hospital. He
chatted with me for a few moments, and seemed to take
an interest in my fate. I told him my history, and
begged him to save my child from Dr. Aouni.

Sezai Bey, the Governor's brother, was at this time
Assistant Director at the Prefecture of Police. To him
the Governor wrote, instructing him to order Dr. Aouni
to surrender my child. Sezai Bey gave the necessary
orders, and the police requested my mother, who lived
at Constantinople, to come and claim the boy. Dr. Aouni
refused to give him up. Police agents broke open his
door and took the child by force. He was saved !

I longed more than ever to return to Constantinople
and take my baby in my arms, but certain duties kept
me at the hospital. Many convalescent patients needed
my help. At this time the institution had fifteen hun-
dred beds and was one of the most important hospitals
behind the front. One day, Enver Pasha, passing
through our town on his return from a review of the

MY LITTLE DICO 257

troops, paid a visit to the hospital. As matron, I had to
make one of the reception committee. After inspecting
the different wards in which the soldiers were being
treated, he congratulated me on their order and cleanli-
ness. '

Suddenly he asked me point blank whence I was.

" I am a Chaldean," I replied, " and my husband
belonged to Trebizond."

Enver Pasha asked calmly what had become of him.

" Deported," I said.

" Have you never had any news from him ? " he asked.

"No."

" No news ? " he insisted.

" None."

Quite unmoved, and as if nothing had been said, he
thanked me for my care of the soldiers, and left me
L. T. 10^^ by way of reward.

Many of our young nurses at the hospital had been
subjected to insult. Powerless to protest, and indignant,
I resolved to leave. My resignation was not accepted at
first and when I insisted, the authorities became irritated

"$50.00.

258 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

and handed me over to the Governor, who, instead of
offering protection, wished to give me to his friends.

On account of my obstinate resistance, he had me
thrown into prison on a charge of having become a mem-
ber of a secret society. There I remained, without
money and helpless, despairing of seeing my child
again ; for I did not expect to live. I became seriously
ill.

A young tradesman named Mempre Hissarian, a con-
vert to Islam under the name of Djenab Chehabeddine,
with the assistance of Dr. Demirdjian, whose other name
was Mahmoud Chevket, found a way of sending me a
bed and some money. Twenty-three days I had been in
prison, when, aided by Arif Hikmet, formerly M.
Archak Moscovian, they succeeded in obtaining me my
liberty.

I returned to Caesarea, and with some companions
hired a room in the Christian quarter. At first I suffered
a little from privation, but a Lebanese priest, who had
been exiled there. Father Antoun Hadji Boutros, helped
me a great deal. He assisted my companions and myself
to live, and, thanks to his efforts, I overcame my diffi-
culties.

MY LITTLE DICO 259

Still full of my plan for seeing my baby, I returned
once more to the charge and forwarded request after
request. At length, I demanded permission of the Min-
istry of the Interior to go, as I said, to see my relatives
at Aleppo. It was Constantinople, however, I had in
view. Being a Chaldean, the necessary permit was
eventually sent me by the ministry, and I left Caesarea
on the 17th April, 1918.

You know how I came to Aleppo, and left there with
you for Constantinople, arriving on the 17th of June,
1918, a date ever memorable to me, in that it was the
third anniversary of my separation from my darling
Dico.

My martyrdom had been long and hard. In the
deportations I lost many most dear to me. God had
willed that I should be spared for the supreme task of
saving my child from the hands of his kidnapper.
Henceforward, I have but one object in life, and that is
to bring up my son.

PART III

Mar Shimoun

CHAPTER I

In Hakkiari and Persia

Prior to the war, about 100,000 Assyro-Chaldeans lived
in the mountainous region of Hakkiari, which is in the
county of Van, on the frontiers of Persia and the Cau-
casus, but in Turkey. They Hved there in semi-inde-
pendence, for many generations, in comparative safety
from the continual persecution of Islam, suffered by their
brethren of the plains.

They lived under the administration of their chiefs
who were known as Meliks, and whose form of govern-
ment was extremely primitive. Over all was a supreme
chief called Mar Shimoun, who lived at Kotchanes, a
small town in the hills.

They were surrounded by Kurds, who continually
fought between each other, for they are of many tribes,
all of whom are hostile to Christians. They were, there-
fore, compelled to carry arms at all times, not only to
impose respect, but for their very existence. This war-
like life instilled in them a martial spirit, and they were

262 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

a very brave and virile race. The Turkish Government
tried from time to time to subdue and disarm these
people, but the soldiers of " The Sick Man " invariably
returned decimated in numbers, and disarmed.

When war was declared, the Assyro-Chaldeans mis-
trusting the good faith of the Turk, and hoping the day
had arrived when his rule would be broken, joyfully
joined the ranks of the allies. In retaliation the Turks
arrested all those of the race who were away from their
mountain fastnesses at the time. Among them was the
young brother of Mar Shimoun, who was in Constanti-
nople, and him they executed.

For several months they were kept busy keeping at
bay the regular army of the Turks which attacked them
in numbers greatly superior to theirs.

They fought all the tribes of Kurds which the Turks
hurled at them, and until the spring of 1915 defeated
them in every instance ; but in that year the Governor of
Mossul, Haider Bey, gathered together an immense army
in a last attempt to crush the Assyro-Chaldeans of the
hills. His army was composed of 40,000 regular troops
of the Turkish army reinforced by the massed tribes of
the Kurds, who attacked from the south, and by an

IN HAKKIARI AND PERSIA 263

auxiliary army of 20,000 regular troops who attacked
from the north.

After several months of fighting against immensely
superior numbers, our brave warriors were surrounded
and cut off from all communication with the Russians,
who being unable to break the blockade, could not send
them supplies of any kind; so that before long their
ammunition gave out and the country's food supply ran
very low. The vanguard did actually manage to force
the Turkish lines, and the world was once more a witness
of what is described so graphically in the Bible ; an en-
tire people moving from the land of their birth to escape
the oppression of the infidel. The Turks and Kurds fell
upon them, and kept up an incessant guerilla warfare,
never failing to kill any unfortunate child or woman
who left the lines through fatigue or sickness, so that
the people lost heart, and the lines of communication
becoming broken, the enemy had little difficulty in split-
ting up the exodus into many parts.

Large numbers of the people were slaughtered, and
the remainder, after terrible hardships and indescribable
sufferings, reached the Russian lines on the Turko-Per-
sian frontier, and joined their fellow citizens, the Assyro-

264 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

Chaldeans of Persia, who were on the plains of Ourmia,
Salmast, and Khoy.

These plainsmen to the number of about 60,000 de-
cided to join the allied army, and indeed 3,000 had been
fighting with the Russians since the autumn of 1914.
They fought under the command of Generals Tcherniza-
bofif, Andrewiski, Siminofï, and Lewenowsiski until the
year 1917.

When the Bolsheviki obtained control of Russian af-
fairs, and discontinued the war against Turkey, the As-
syro-Chaldeans were officially requested by the Allied
Governments to take charge of the Turko-Persian front
deserted by the Russians. This front extended from
Serai to Bashkala, and from Oushnou to Soudjboulak.

The importance of this request can be the more easily
appreciated when it is remembered that the object in
view was the safety of the British army, which was now
open to attack by the German and Turkish forces should
they succeed in crossing the plains of Khoy, Ourmia and
Saldous. The British lines at the time extended from
Kirmanshah to Bagdad.

In six different engagements the Assyro-Chaldeans de-
feated the combined forces of the Germans, Turks and

IN HAKKIARI AND PERSIA 265

Kurds, and by holding them in check enabled the British
army to fortify their positions and estabhsh lines of com-
munication between Kirmanshah, Hamadan, Kasavine
Enzeli. This they did with an army of 25,000 men,
until Mar Shimoun with his principal leaders and assist-
ants were killed by treachery.

Simko, the leader of the Kurds, invited Mar Shimoun
to a discussion of peace terms, and on the appointed day
he attended the conference with three hundred of the
leading men of the Assyro-Chaldean army. Terms of
a peace treaty were discussed and agreed upon, and the
meeting broke up, apparently with the Assyro-Chaldeans
the gainers by the pact.

As Mar Shimoun and his assistants were passing through
the streets of the town the housetops were filled with
people, and at a given signal, when the Assyro-Chaldeans
least expected treachery, a fusillade belched forth upon
them. Of the entire retinue only a few escaped to tell
the story.

Maddened by the treachery of the enemy, the Assyro-
Chaldeans were rash in their attacks upon the Kurds, and
they captured many of their villages and holdings so
that the Kurds were compelled to send reinforcements.

266 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

In time, however, their munitions and supplies fell short,
and the repeated promises, made to them in messages
brought by aeroplane from the British headquarters, not
being fulfilled, the Assyro-Chaldean army experienced
grave difficulties.

Until the 30th of July, 1918, they held out; but on
that day they turned south with their families, and at-
tempted to reach the British lines. The Kurds and
Turks fell upon them, and fully one-half were killed
during this terrible retreat.

The British army advanced to meet them, and escorted
the survivors in safety to Baguba.

Out of this entire nation which so warmly espoused
the cause of the Allies, less than 50,000 reached Baguba,
the remainder having either died on the battlefields or
during the retreat.

Following the withdrawal of the Russian army, the
Assyro-Chaldeans who had fled into Russia at the time
of the first exodus, were reduced to the very lowest
straits, and were in dire want.

In order to seek aid from the Allies, delegates were
sent to Paris, and it was from one of these delegates —

The Rev. Lazar Georges

IN HAKKIARI AND PERSIA 267

the Rev. Lazare George, of Khosrova — that I obtained
the following document :

In the month of August, 1914, before Turkey entered
the war, the tribes of the Kurds, the Beïzadés, Tchékaks
and Harkâïs, urged by the Turks, attacked at different
times the sunny plains of Ourmiah and Salmas, hitherto
occupied by a Russian detachment formed of the three
Regiments, the fifth and the seventh Caucasian tirailleurs
and the Chirvan Regiment of the Imperial Guard. At
the time, numerous proclamations were appearing in the
town of Ourmiah, endeavouring to force the Russians,
by means of threats, to quit the country.

In face of these facts General Dagoutchaëff and Col-
onel Krondpatiéff, at the order of their Commander-in-
Chief General Bakhitonoff, invited the Assyro-Chaldeans
of the region to volunteer to assist the Russians in de-
fending the Perso-Turkish frontier. This invitation was
accepted instantly.

Towards the end of August there took place the battle
of Siry, a Chaldean village situated on a mountain, fought
about twelve kilometres southwest of the town. In this
battle, the Assyro-Chaldean volunteers, assisted by two

268 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

companies of Russians, put the Turks to flight and made
seventeen prisoners, amongst them a Turkish officer
grievously wounded. This left no doubt in our minds
that Turkey had had the intention, even before the
declaration of war, of attacking Russia. The same fact
was revealed in the subsequent battles of Havana, where
Lieutenant Baioff and several Cossacks of the detach-
ment were killed, Sangar, Djarbache, and Toura Dioudaé
the Montagne of Juifs.

When Turkey officially entered into war with Russia
in the month of November, the Assyro-Chaldeans were
considerably worried as to their future.

IÇIS- The First Flight
On the 2nd of January, 1915, Enver Pasha, at the head
of two Army Corps of Turks cut ofï the right wing
of the Russian Army, south of Kars, and took possession
of the town of Sarikamiche and the whole of the railway.
The Russian detachment, which formed the left wing,
received secretly the order to fall back on Djoulfa, un-
known to the Christian inhabitants. The next day at
dawn the countryside was completely evacuated. Our
Assyro-Chaldean volunteers, attacked everywhere by the

THE FIRST FLIGHT 269

Kurdo-Turks from the east, defended themselves vali-
antly under the leadership of their intrepid commander,
Raphael Khan.

From the direction of Urmia one heard the cries
and lamentations of the Christians abandoned by the
Russians, and left to the mercy of the Moslem fana-
ticism of the Persians, Kurds and Turks. About a third
of our Christians from Urmia and Salmas had time
to flee in the rear of the Russian army, and made towards
the Caucasus mountains, when hundreds of women and
children perished by the roadside. It was in the bitterest
part of winter, and the cold, the snow and the mud ren-
dered the roads impassable in many places. Mothers
abandoned their children in order to be relieved of their
burden; children, fallen into the snow and mud cried
after their parents who were lost. A French mis-
sionary, Georges Decroo, Superior of the Lazarite Mis-
sion at Salmas, devoted himself entirely to the care of
these poor refugees. On horseback and on foot, return-
ing often many miles in the mud and in the snow,
fetching bread and clothing to distribute among those in
the worst plight, this brave and indefatigable priest gave

270 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

himself no rest, day or night, and at Djoulfa he sold his
horse to buy bread for the refugees.

As for the Assyro-Chaldeans who had remained at
Salmas and at Urmia, more than twelve thousand
had been massacred by the Persian inhabitants and by
the Kurdo-Turks. Fourteen thousand found refuge in
the American Mission, and five thousand in the French
Mission at Urmia, and remained there captive for four
months, until the return of the Russian troops.

In this interval the greater part of our combatants
died in the trenches. One hundred and sixty of our
valiant volunteers fought for several days in the village
of Gogtape where they were defending a population
of more than 2,000 persons against 3,000 Kurds sup-
ported by both Persians and Turks.

It was then that Doctor Packard of the American
Mission, accompanied by one of our native doctors, un-
dertook to leave Urmia to intervene on behalf of the
population of this village. He was preceded by the
flag of the United States as he approached the Kurdish
chiefs. As a result of his parley, our volunteers con-
sented to lay down their arms, and to join the 2,000

THE FIRST FLIGHT

271

Assyro-Chaldeans that the brave Dr. Packard led into
his residence at Urmia amongst the other captives.
Massacres, meanwhile were taking place at Gulpachan,
Gogtape, Ada, Khosrowa and at Haftevan. Everywhere
the houses were pillaged, several were burned and de-
stroyed and the greater part of the schools and churches
suffered the same fate.

At Khosrowa, a town of some 7,000 Chaldean inhabi-
tants, the Kurds dressed themselves in sacred vestments,
and paraded the streets on horseback, some in chasubles,
some in copes, and one of them in surplice and stole,
wearing even the Bishop's mitre on his long Kurdish head
carrying the pastoral cross, in the midst of which pro-
fanations our martyrs were conducted to their death in
groups of fifty to sixty persons. These things were done
by the order of Djavdet Bey, son of Tahir-Pacha, who
with all his staff occupied the French Mission of the
Lazaristes at Khosrowa. In one of these convoys an
old man of seventy-five, named Isaac Terrâkh, not being
able to walk, the Turkish soldiers took him and placed
him on the back of a priest, Israel Bi-Sava, and so led
him to the place of his death where he was executed with

272 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

seven hundred others. The bodies were thrown into
pits where they were torn by birds of prey.

The perpetrators of these horrors then returned to
Van laden with rich booty plundered at Khosrowa, where
Djavdet Bey boasted without shame to the Rev. Father
Bernard Gormachtique, Superior of the Dominican Mis-
sion, that he alone had brought from Khosrowa both
gold and precious objects worth more than $125,000.

The village of Patavour was pillaged by the Kurds
of Ismael Agha Simco who lived there during the
occupation of the Turks at Salmas.

At Ourmiah more than 500 Assyro-Chaldeans, amongst
them a Bishop and five priests, were brutally dragged
by the Turkish troops to the French Mission in spite
of the prayers of Mgr. Sontag, Apostolic-Delegate, and
conducted to the Toura Dioudae where they were mar-
tyred.

At Gulpachan, more than one hundred and fifty young
men were led to the village cemetery and shot by the
Turkish and Persian soldiers. Three hundred persons,
men and women with their children, were burned alive
in the church at Ada.

So fanatical were the Mussulmans that they paid the

THE FIRST FLIGHT 273

Turkish officers for the privilege of kilHng the Christians
themselves.

Whilst the refugees were crossing the bridge over the
river Araxe a woman, harassed with the fatigue of hav-
ing a child on one arm and a heavy package of clothes
on the other, and wishing to disembarrass herself of the
latter threw her load into the river. What was her
dismay in perceiving that she had just thrown her son
in place of her burden!

It was in the month of April, that is, over three months
later when the Russian troops re-entered Salmas, and
a little later Urmia. Immediately they gave orders for
the burial of the Christian corpses throughout the coun-
try-side, and for cleaning the streets. At the same
time they forced the Mussulmans to give up within
twenty-four hours all the Christian women and young
girls retained in their harems.

That part of our Assyro-Chaldean nation composed of
several tribes governed by the chief called Meliks who,
for some centuries, have led an almost wandering and
autonomous life in the ravines and mountains in the
vicinity of the Persian frontier, had often to sustain
sharp attacks and disastrous conflicts with the Kurdish

274 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

tribes from the district of Hakkiari. Their quarrels,
which arose, perhaps, out of a question of pasturage, or
the ownership of flocks of sheep brought thither by one
or the other, ended more often than not in bloodshed and
the destruction of entire Christian villages.

These massacres were only arrested, in fact, much
later, through the intervention of Russia and England.^
At the commencement of the war, those of our tribes
from the mountains of Turkey, took arms against the
Turks at the request of the Russians. For more than
four months from April 1915 these heroes sustained
attacks from 10,000 Kurds, and fought heroically against
the regular army of the Turks, which had come from
Mossul in four battalions with artillery. The Assyro-
Chaldeans were expecting reinforcements from the Rus-
sian Army Corps which had been promised them by
General Tchernozouboflf commanding the troops from
Azerbeïdjan. That aid arrived too late, however, and
a great part of the population from Tkhuma, Barwar,
Amedea and from the neighbourhood of Zakho, Botan
and Sairt were put to death. Those who survived strug-

1 In 1895, during the Christian massacre 55,000 Assyro-
Chaldeans lost their lives.

THE FIRST FLIGHT

275

gled valiantly against an enemy ten times their strength
in numbers. Against 126,000 this small army defended
a population of 47,000 and led them in safety to the
plains of Urmia, Salmas and Khoy.

During this flight the intrepid Malik Khochaba from
Tiari, seeing a large convoy of girls and young women
whom the Turks were carrying off, took with him a
handful of brave men, and dividing his forces attacked
the Turks from two sides. In this encounter, this hero,
commanding men as brave as himself, completely van-
quished the Turks, and delivered from their grip 2,600
women and girls, whom they led back to the neighbour-
hood of Bash-Kale and Deïr, where the 47,000 refugees
were encamped. During this terrible fight, Malik Kho-
chaba lost only six men.

On the day following this battle there Mar Awraham
Chemounaia, Bishop of Kotchanes, died. He was the
brother of Nemrod Bey Chemounaia, who with his sons,
was assassinated through the intrigues of his own family.
More than 70,000 Assyro-Chaldeans from Hakkiari per-
ished; partly by the terrible massacres, partly through
fatigue and hunger, and through the different maladies
inseparable from war.

276 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

On their arrival at Salmas, the state of the survivors
was lamentable, and the Russians, authors of these trage-
dies, had little desire at first to burden themselves with
these unhappy victims whom they had engaged in the
war. It was again the brave Larapiste Decroo who
ameliorated their sad lot. He it was who proclaimed
everywhere against the Russians, telegraphed and wrote
on several occasions to the Russian Grand Duke Nicolas,
Viceroy of the Caucases, saying that these unhappy peo-
ple had suffered through the fault of the Russians, and
that it would be an injustice to abandon them at this
juncture. He collected the sum of 70,000 roubles and so
saved the people from famine.

The town of Khosrowa was strewn with corpses.
Streets, gardens, pathways, fields, were filled with them.
M. Decroo turned into a cemetery a large field near the
church at Savra, where he had charge of a mission.
The convent of the Sisters of Charity was full to over-
flowing with the dying.

One evening this brave missionary saw a young girl
stretched in agony on the ground. He took her, placed
her in the courtyard of the Sisters of Charity, and went
to seek dead leaves for her to lie on, and to cover her

OUR SITUATION 277

from the cold of the night. Scarcely, however, had he
filled his arms with dead leaves, than he felt with his
hands the cold bodies of two dead refugees, who had
sought a bed in the leaves.

It would be impossible to recount all the horrors that
overtook these starving wretches. Forced to eat even
the cats and dogs of the village, they were glad to -strip
the trees of their bark to satisfy their hunger. Some
months later the Russian Administration of the Red
Cross took their case in hand, and managed to save the
few remaining refugees.

Our Situation in içiô

Towards the beginning of the year 1916, with the con-
sent of Mar-Shimoun and the national council of Salmas,
the Russian leaders and the French officers organized into
groups the volunteers in the Assyro-Chaldean army, the
right wing of which was commanded by David Shimoun-
ayia, brother of Mar Shimoun, and the left wing by Agha
Petros Elie.

This army crossed Bash-Kale and attacked the Kurdish
chief from Hakkiari named Suto, the Intendant of Sheikh
Abdul-Kadir. They defeated the Kurds and returned

278 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

with considerable booty in the shape of merchandise,
sheep and cattle, which had belonged originally in 1914
to the Asyro-Chaldeans. This famous Suto, who came
from the town of Ouramar, in the fertile country drained
by the great Baba, one of the tributaries of the river
Tigris, was in 1915 the Attila of Hakiari, and burnt and
pillaged over forty villages of the Assyro-Chaldeans of
Hakiari and put to the sword some 50,000 from Tek-
huma, Tiari, Barvar, etc.

Some hundreds of Assyro-Chaldeans from Salmas and
Urmia enlisted voluntarily in the Assyro-Chaldean army,
and excelled in military exercises. All the Assyro-
Chaldean battalions were formed by the commencement
of 1917, from which date began the saddest era in the
history of our nation, and that on account of the Rus-
sian revolution which destroyed the discipline of the
soldiers, and rooted out patriotism from their hearts.

During the Russian revolution the whole of the Cau-
casian front wavered, from Khanikina to Ravandouze,
Margavar, Targavar, Bash-Kale, Van, Erzeroum and
Trebizond. It was at this time, moreover, that the Allied
representatives arrived at Salmas and at Urmia in
order to discipline the Assyrian army. When, in the

OUR SITUATION 279

month of October 1917, the power of Kerensky fell
into the hands of the infamous Bolsheviks, the new Rus-
sian leaders gave orders for the troops on the Caucasian
front to return into Russia, saying that, so far as they
were concerned, the war was over, and that their repre-
sentatives had already surrendered at Brest-Litovsk. The
hitherto brave and well-disciplined Russian soldiery were,
at this stage, irrecognisable. They became transformed
into bandits. All the property of the State was aban-
doned, munitions, provisions and equipment alike. They
fled in disorder, burning and destroying bazaars in their
wave of anarchy, everything indeed which presented an
obstacle to their return. I myself saw at the Persian
town of Djoulfa a Russian soldier exchange his rifle
with a Mussulman for a glass of wine. Another gave
his horse for a small piece of halva.^

After the flight of the disorganised Russian army our
Christians and our army remained surrounded by Per-
sians, Kurds and Turks, all old and cruel tyrants and
pitiless enemies of our Assyro-Chaldean nation. The
English army in Mesopotamia was too far removed, and

- Oriental sweetmeats.

280 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

the plight of our Armenian neighbours was equally as
difficult as our own, so that there remained but two
alternatives. Either we must follow the Russians and
take refuge with all our nation in the Caucasus, or we
must hold to our engagements with the Allies to defend
the Caucasian front against the Turks, and live or die
in the attempt.

For the first alternative, our national Assembly wished
to quit Urmia and Salmas and to send all the Chris-
tians to the Caucasus, but the representatives of the Allied
Powers deterred them. Thus Captain Gressi, acting on
behalf of England; Lieutenant Gaspela of the French
MiHtary Mission, sent by his chief Colonel Chardigny,
and Dr. Canjole, Chief Medical Officer of the French
Military Hospital, acting on behalf of France, Dr. Sheidt,
the American Vice-Consul, M. Nikitine, Russian Consul,
and General Karpofif, who was stationed at Urmia with
his stafif more than 200 Russian officers, called together
our National Assembly, composed of all our chief people
under the presidency of Mar Shimoun, the leader of the
Assyro-Chaldeans from Hakkiari, and asked them to un-
dertake the defence of the Turkish front abandoned by

OUR SITUATION 281

the Bolsheviks. Captain Gressi rose and said that he
had just come from organising the Caucasus front, of
which a part, from Trebizonde to Erzeroum, would be
guarded by the Georgian army, from Erzeroum to Van
by the Armenians, and from Bash-Kale, Salmas, Enzel,
Wurmiah, and Suldonze to Savouch-Boulagh by the
Assyro-Chaldean soldiers. To the latter he promised,
should the armies be victorious, money, equipment, mu-
nitions, reinforcements and self-government. An agree-
ment was drawn up and signed by all the representatives.

The Russians had left us eight guns and several
machine-guns and ammunition. The French gave us
20,000 Lebel rifles, whilst several French officers, to-
gether with the few Russian officers who had remained
behind, set about organising our Assyro-Chaldean army,
the numbers of which had grown to more than 20,000.
One half of the army was commanded by Agha Petrus
Elie, and the other by the brave Malik Khochaba from
Tiari.

The year 1918, full of glorious battles, was at the same
time full of terrible distress, sacrifices and massacres
for our people.

282 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

The Massacres by the Persians
Our Assyro-Chaldean nation accepted the demand of
the Allied representatives, without any political pact to
safeguard its future. She wished to serve the cause
of the Allies unconditionally, and she entered into th^
war with a joyous heart.

Before commencing the recital of our military en-
gagements, however, it would be as well to say a word
on the treacherous treatment which we, as a nation, had
received, from the most remote times, at the hands of
the Persian government.

The Governor-General of Azerbeïdjan, like the Crown
Prince of Persia, resided at Tabriz, the second largest
town after Teheran. The Governor who administered
Ourmiah and Salmas, inhabited for the greater part by
Assyro-Chaldeans, would bribe his chief and, together
with his satellites and paid servants, would periodically
visit the districts under his charge and pillage the Chris-
tians, making them pay large fines without any cause,
on merely trumped-up pretexts; putting them in prison
and exacting from them large sums of money in order
to impoverish and ruin them. He had, in other words,
simply bought his appointment in order to amass wealth.

THE MASSACRES BY THE PERSIANS

283

During the last century missionaries, first American then
French, arrived in the country, and protected to a certain
extent the Christians. This protection, however, did not
put a stop to the fanaticism of the Mohammedans of
Azerbeïdjan. On the contrary it redoubled the provoca-
tions and injustices of every imaginable kind against the
Christians whom the Persians called Guiavours (infi-
dels). At last these repeated injustices obliged our
Christians to quit the country and scatter themselves
in Russia, and elsewhere.

Thus, from day to day, the number of our Christians
diminished in these parts, giving place to the Mussulman.

It often happened that bands of Kurds from the Turk-
ish frontier would attack various Christian villages around
Tiargavar, Margavar, Urmia and Salmas, pillaging,
burning and massacring the inhabitants. The Persian
government, not only did not seek to defend our Chris-
tian communities, although they were their own subjects,
but even excited the Kurds to repeat their brigandage
and atrocities against the Christians. On these occasions,
so long as it concerned the Christians, the Persians, Kurds
and Turks acted as one people and joined issue. All
the while our people were ill-treated, plundered and put

284 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

to death by the Persians, before they fell victims to the
Kurdo-Turks.

Let us now return to the commencement of the year
1918. The Governor of Urmia and Salmas, a man
named Idjlal-ul-Mulk, perceiving the Allied representa-
tives to be organising the Assyro-Chaldean army, began
to send unfavourable reports on the situation to his com-
mander at Tabriz. It was at this time that the Bol-
shevik leaders had given the order for the evacuation of
the Caucasus front by the Russian troops, and that the
Assyro-Chaldean army had given their pledge to the
Allied representatives to take their place on the evacu-
ated front. The Governor of Urmia, Idjlal-ul-Mulk,
seeing his opportunity, sent for the members of the
Assyro-Chaldean Committee and told them to lay down
their arms, and not be deceived by the Allies, above all
by the mad English. Our people replied that they had
nothing against Persia, except that she appeared in-
capable of defending the Christians, even her own sub-
jects, against the attacks of the Kurdo-Turks, and that
the events and the massacres of 1915 were in themselves
sufficient proof of this. The Governor replied that he
himself would accompany them to Mossul and demand

THE MASSACRES BY THE PERSIANS 285

the protection of Khalil Pasha. The chiefs of our
nation, however, seeing through the ruse which was
planned for their undoing, would not hear him, and
refused to leave the Allies. It was then evident that
the government of the province of Azerbeïdjan was asso-
ciated with Turkey in giving aid to the German agents
at Tabriz, who were working against the cause of the
Allies. Thus, at the beginning of February, both our
armies at Urmia and Salmas were attacked at the
same time by Persian soldiers and Cossacks from Tabriz,
belonging to the Azerbeïdjan brigade.

Mar-Shimoun wrote at this time two letters to the Gov-
ernor of Urmia and the Governor-General of Azer-
beïdjan at Tabriz, to be communicated to the Crown
Prince of Persia. In these two letters Mar-Shimoun de-
clared that he harboured neither suspicion nor hostility
towards the government or the inhabitants of Azer-
beïdjan, and that he would defend this nation, which had
taken refuge on Persian soil, against the attacks of the
Kurds and Turks. He asked of them hospitality for the
winter, until the spring, when he would leave the country
and return with his people to Russia or elsewhere.

286 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

For reply one saw every time four or five of our
soldiers either despoiled of their arms or killed out-
right in the bazaars of Urmia. The Persians did not
even stop at this ; they collected en masse and surrounded
the Christian quarters with the intention of massacring
the people, in order to take their part in the holy war
which had been proclaimed in Turkey. Seeing no other
means of saving our Christian people from annihilation,
the leaders of our army received the order to defend
themselves. On the morrow the town of Urmia sur-
rendered, and we were masters of the whole of the
plain of Urmia. In the meanwhile Mar-Shimoun re-
paired to Salmas, ignorant of the design of the Gov-
ernor of Azerbeïdjan, who had given secret orders to
Ishmael-Agha-Simco, the terrible chief of the Kurdish
tribe of Schakaks, to invite Mar-Shimoun under pretence
of an offer of reconciliation in order to assassinate him.
Simco, having succeeded in convincing Mar-Shimoun that
he himself was a friend of the English and that he had
undertaken to defend for them the Turkish front from
Khanassour to Bach-Kale, invited him to Kohné-Shaper
to collaborate over the undertaking. Mar-Shimoun re-
paired thither with 300 horsemen. The moment, how-

IN HAKKIARI AND PERSIA 287

ever, that he turned his back on Simco to mount his car-
riage, he and his valiant followers were brutally
assassinated.

After the murder of Mar-Shimoun the government of
Tabriz sent 4,000 infantry and 2,000 horsemen, hoping
once and for all to finish off the Christians. To their
surprise, however, they were completely beaten and were
driven off in disorder.

Spring had just commenced, and the whole of the
south of the Caucasus had recently become occupied by
German and Turkish troops. Our army was thus sur-
rounded on all sides by the bitterest enemies ten times
their strength in numbers. They were forced to fight,
at one and the same time, the Turks, the Kurds and the
Persians. Salmas, after numerous battles, was no longer
able to withstand the shock of Ali Ihsan's army, which
alone numbered 12,000 regular soldiers. But a handful
of the population of Urmia was able to escape; the
rest, more than 9,000 in number, were massacred, stoned
to death, sawn in two, steeped in petrol and burnt alive.
All the Christian villages of the province of Salmas suf-
fered the same fate; schools and churches were devas-
tated and burnt to the ground; women and young girls

288 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

were carried off by these enemies of Christianity and
retained in their harems.

At DiHman, several hundreds of women were stripped
of their clothes and forced to march up and down the
streets in groups. There they were given one hour's
grace in which to become Moslem, the alternative being
death. All immediately fell to praying for strength to
die. All were martyred.

Other groups who had fled in the direction of Ourmiah
were arrested on the way, the men shot, and the young
women carried away. One little baby was seen playing
with the blood which flowed from his mother's breast.
Other little children, suffering from hunger in the val-
leys, climbed the hillsides and sought again their mothers
lying dead by the wayside, astonished that they would
not awaken.

Urmia sustained the brunt of the attacks from the
Kurdo-Turks and the Persians for eight long months.
After fourteen battles our little army at last beat the
Turks, in spite of the superior numbers of the enemy,
which were no less than ten times greater than their own.

The bravery of these sons of Assyria and Chaldea has
been recognised by the Allies and by the entire world.

THE MASSACRES BY THE PERSIANS 289

The enemy himself has learnt to respect this ancient
nation, oppressed though it has been for centuries. For
eight months our nation served as an advanced-guard
to the Allies in the north-west of Persia, repulsing the
attacks of Kurds, Turks and Persians. For a year and
a half they were strategically an aid to the British, who,
during this time, were moving across Persia from Kir-
manshah to Hamadan in the direction of Baku.

Towards the 10th of January of this same year, 1918,
an English aeroplane brought us a letter in which the
Commander-in-Chief of the British troops in Mesopo-
tamia said, " We are aware of all your exploits and your
bravery against the Turks. Resist yet three or four days
more, and we will arrive with help. . . . We are at
Sahin, Kale, and Bidjar. . . ." Two weeks passed
without any indication of the promised help, and dur-
ing this time we were attacked from the north by Ali
Ihsan Pacha with his 12,000 soldiers, from the east by
Kheïri Bey with 8,000 Turks, from the west by the Kurds,
and again in the east by the Persians commanded by the
famous Majddul-Saltané, who was actually a prisoner of
the English.

290 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

Our General, Agha Petros, then took with him 1,500
horsemen, overcame the forces of Kheïri Bey at Suldouze
and turned in the direction of Sahin-Kalé, beyond which
lay the British army. Two days later, on the 2nd August,
the remainder of the army, worn-out, decimated, without
munitions, again beat the Turks towards the east of
Urmia and fell back with more than 80,000 men,
women and children in the direction of Hamadan where
other British troops were known to be. The Christians
who remained at Urmia, to the number of 16,000, were
massacred by the Mussulmans of the country and by the
Turks. Amongst these martyrs were Mgr. Sontag, the
Apostolic-Delegate, the Bishop Thomas Audo and several
priests. Some hundreds of women and young girls were
carried ofï by the Persians and the Kurdo-Turks, under
whose power they must still be. The Sisters of the
French school at Urmia, having taken refuge in the
church of the Mission, were dishonoured in the very
sanctuary itself, by the Persian soldiers from Archad-
Himayoun. Dr. D. Israel, a member of our National
Committee, was hanged at Urmia by the order of the
Turkish Commandant Kheiri Bey, who moreover, shot
all our wounded who were lying at the American hos-

THE MASSACRES BY THE PERSIANS 291

pital, in spite of the efforts and protestations of Dr.
Packard. The French military hospital, which at that
time was under the authority of the Chief Medical
Officer, Colonel Caujole, who, however, had had to
leave Urmia some time before the arrival of the Turks,
was completely despoiled by the Persian Mussulmans
from Tabriz. They took away by force from the French
all their goods, arms and gold.

Thus the Persians from the province of Azerbeidjan
were openly against the Allies and were ranged on the
side of the Turk. Their famous Majd-ul-Saltane, who
on two occasions cut off the retreat of our unhappy refu-
gees, telegraphed from Miandal to Tabriz that he had
that day sent to hell 2,000 guiavours (Christians). On
the following day that despatch was published in the
paper " Tadjaddud," the official organ of the social-
democratic party at Tabriz. This same Majd-ul-Saltane
surrounded at Sahin-Kale 3,000 refugees, all of whom
would have been murdered but for the timely arrival of
the brave Colonel Azaria Tamraz with a handful of
horsemen, who thus saved them from certain death.

More than a half of our Christians perished from
fatigue, hunger and thirst during this unhappy flight

292 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

from Ourmiah to Hamadan. The comforter and guide
of the refugees at this time was Dr. Sheidt, the American
Vice-Consul. Unfortunately this man, so helpful and
powerful, succumbed on the march and died at Sahin-
Kalé.

At Hamadan the Anglo-American committees set about
succouring our scattered and worn-out refugees. About
52,000 were concentrated at Bakouba, not far from Bag-
dad. The remainder were scattered about in the dif-
ferent villages of Persia, Kirmanshah, Hamadan, Kaz-
vin, Becht, and Tabriz. 20,000 were in the Caucasus;
that is to say, 7,000 at Tiflis, 5,000 in the surrounding
villages as far as Kontaïs, 2,000 at Elisa-Vetpol, 6,000
in the villages of Erivan. All these refugees were from
Urmia and Salmas and from the mountains of Tur-
key. More than 30,000 found refuge in the north of
the Caucasus at Vladicaucasus, Armavir, Rostow, Novo-
rossik and Ekatherinadar.

The sufferings our refugees passed through are beyond
imagination. Their numbers diminished day by day.
Without shelter, warm covering or hot food, such con-
tagious diseases as malaria and typhus made terrible

THE MASSACRES BY THE PERSIANS 293

ravages amongst them. None dared to think of the
numbers to which they would be reduced before they
were able to return, if ever, to their respective hearths.

For myself, as a military chaplain in the Russian
detachment at Azerbeïdjan, I was an eye-iwtness of all
the horrors and atrocities committed by the Turks. Four-
teen of my own family, including my mother, fell victims
to massacre or disease.

The Mussulmans of the country, after having pillaged
my home, destroyed it. My sister Anna, having seen
her husband Joseph, her son John, her brothers-in-law
James, Lazarus, Nicholas, Thomas and Issa, her cousins
Paul Warda, Joseph Basile, and Mary, and her aunt
Rachel shot before her eyes, was led captive by the
Turks from Salmas to Urmia, and from there re-
turned with other captives to Khosrowa, where she re-
ceived help and succour from a Kurdish chief from the
neighbourhood of Salmas who happened to be a friend
of the family.

The following is a letter sent to the Abbé Decroo
from Tauris by the hand of M. Jean Djoumma, a Chal-
dean of Khosrowa.

294 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

" Tauris, 3rd May, 1919.
My dear friend,

The recent events of 1918 have at last forced us to
abandon Salmas, and to depart from Urmia. The wise
M. Miraziz, ... as well as almost all the inhabi-
tants of Khosrowa and Patavour, have gone to the Mis-
sion under the protection of Cacha Taddeus.

We commenced our last flight at five o'clock in the
evening, the Turks and Kurds not daring to raid the
evacuated districts until four o'clock in the morning on
the following day. Learning of our precipitated flight
they set out to pursue us with all their force. We first
came into touch on the road leading from Tchimani to
Kabagh-Tapé, near Ali-Abad, a little village off the
main route. There they massacred more than 500 per-
sons, principally those who had lost their way in the
darkness in the Karassiuvi near Dapdapi. Amongst the
killed was Youhanna Shamasha, of the Bishop's suite,
in whose droga^ were all the Bishop's possessions and
those of Casha Ishoo, together with the sacred vest-
ments of the church. Everything disappeared. Amongst
the other massacred were the following: Paul Sina (my

A two wheeled wagon.

THE MASSACRES BY THE PERSIANS 295

neighbour), Petrus Kadou, Orika Murada with his wife
and child Isaac and his son-in-law Paul Tchoban, Paul
Badal Hassan with his father and his mother, Joseph
Panos with his brothers Lazar and Thomas and all
their families. . . .

A second band of Kurds had in the meanwhile set
out by the mountain path in order to cut off the road
to Guiadug, and they succeeded only too well. All the
gardouni^ and arahani,^ more than 600 in number, were
overthrown. The only bridge that spanned the river
was destroyed. All was lost! The cries of our poor
people were heard in the mountains like the sound of
thunder.

Many were later massacred at Guiadug, amongst them
Paul Kianun and his family, Peter Ishmael, Babé Tir-
rakh, etc. Before Djabbal we were saved from a similar
massacre by a great storm, which broke over the country.

Arrived at Urmia, we heard in the distance the
sound of the guns of the Turks, which were firing from
the mountains of Syria. The army, just arrived from
Salmas, immediately left again to take up a defensive

^ Wagons.
^ Carriages.

296 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

position. Happily the Turks retired. From the four
villages of Salmas, over 1,100 persons had reached Ur-
mia, and of this number 700 found refuge in the house
of Mgr. Sontag, who had great confidence in Archad-
Himaioun. Yet the latter proved to be the first to fire
on the Delegate.

The cause of our flight was Agha Petrus, who had
written to Mar-Shimoun at Salmas, advising him to com-
mence the attack on the Turks, who had retired on Kara-
Tape, and promising that he would reinforce him with
3,500 men. The attack began. Agha Petrus came two
days later with only 300 men. Arrived at Salmas from
Schakar-Yazi, he retook the road to Urmia, whilst Mar-
Shimoun's men advanced steadily.

We rested at Urmia a month and thirteen days. On
the 18th July we again retreated towards Suldouze,
Bidjar and Hamadan, from which place we were advised
by the British to make for Bagdad. During the night
I took my party and regained the highway leading to
Kazvin and Teheran. The march from Urmia to
Teheran lasted 48 hours, during which time we lost
many women and children, who fell out by the roadside
and had to be left. Our doctor David died at Bidjar.

THE MASSACRES BY THE PERSIANS 297

M. Sheidt, the American Vice-Consul, died at Sahin-
Kale, where the terrible Madjd-ul-Saltane with his band
of Turks had massacred over 2,000 persons. It was'
from this place that he had telegraphed his despatch, ' I
have to-day sent to hell 2,000 guiavours.'

This Madjd-ul-Saltane was finally arrested at Batoum
by Father Georges. It would be too long to tell it all
in detail, but it is a romance more interesting than that
of Telemachus.

I am sending you with this letter a list of those who
set out with me from Urmia, and are now either with
me here or at Tiflis, and another list of those who are
still alive and are at Khosrowa. Those whose names
you do not find have either died or have been massacred.

Our Bishop whom we all thought had disappeared
with the Turks, is said to be actually at Diarleetris.
With him there are four priests.

I was very glad to receive news of M. Franssen. I
have heard that my sister Badji is dead. On arriving
here I also learnt that my mother had died. There only
remains Victoria, my niece, poor child !

Mira Yacoub Zacharia died at Teheran. He always
said that he intended to set out for Salmas, even though

298 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

it meant travelling on foot during the winter time, and
now unhappily he is dead. The wife of Shimoun Vis-
vissou and that of Jacob Issa-Khan died also at Teheran.
I intend to leave for Salmas with my own people as soon
as safeguard is assured us by the Allied consuls. I
hope that this will be within a month.

The relations between Simco and Father Stephan are
good, but one cannot say whether they are not merely
superficial. To-day we received a letter from Bakouba
in which our Christians announce their intention of re-
turning to Urmia with an army of 14,000 Chaldeans
and Armenians, under the command of the British.
There are at Bacouba 160 persons from Salmas, men,
women and children. The Mussulmans at Urmia fled,
I hear, as soon as they heard of the approach of the
British troops.

Michael Nicholas Beïzadé died at Cazvin, whence 80
people from Salmas set out yesterday for Tauris. . . .

Mahmed-Ali Khan has been murdered by the Armen-
ians, his own subjects from Dirichki, and Simco has mar-
ried Mahmed's daughter Saëd-Lachker. Ahmed Agha,
brother of Simco, is living at Gulizan.

THE MASSACRES BY THE PERSIANS 299

You know all the horrors suffered by our Christians
during the massacres. Our women were burned alive,
others were sawn to pieces, men, women and children
were crucified or hacked to death. So great indeed were
the horrors that the barbarous Turks were astonished
to find at Urmia Mussulmans more barbarous than
themselves. Bishop Thomas Audo, a French missionary
in Chaldea, and M. Dinkha were led naked through the
streets of Urmia before being martyred. My heart
is torn, and I cannot tell you all the cruelties and the
different tortures invented by the Mussulmans for our
thousands of martyrs. . . .

Au revoir !

Jean Djoumma."

On the 20th of March, 1919, I addressed a personal
note from Tauris to Ismaël-Agha Simco, the chief of the
Kurdish tribe of Shakaks. I advised him, to look well
to himself, as I intended coming to see him. I reminded
him incidentally that he must know that Constantinople
was now in the hands of the Allies. I added a prayer
that he would urgently care for the many women and

300 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

children who still remained captive at Urmia and Sal-
mas, and besought him to defend them from the grip of
the Persian Mussulmans, if he did not want his little
afïair spoilt by the Allies. Simco replied on the 14th
April, but I have since received, on the 10th May, the
following letter:
" Very dear friend.

After having offered you my most cordial salutations,
with the hope that you are in perfect health, I hasten
to tell you that I have received your honoured letter of
the 20th March, duly and in good time. I am truly glad
that you intend to come to Salmas to visit me, and I pray
to reply at your earliest convenience to inform me on
what day you may be leaving Tauris, in order that I may
send my horsemen to meet you. Come, however, as soon
as it is possible for you to do so. In the meanwhile I
beg you to believe that I am guilty of no crime.®

You know that we, from the days of our an-
cestors, have hated these Persian infidels, in whom I
admit I have been deceived. On your coming I will
show you that I am in no way to blame. I have never

6 Presumably in connection with the assassination of Mar-
Shimoun

THE MASSACRES BY THE PERSIANS

301

forgotten the benefits and the kindness that you and
your brother have ever shown towards me.

I have brought together all your Christians in one place,
and have placed them under guards so that no one shall
molest them. I have helped them all I could, and you are
free to write to them. As for your sister Anna, do not
worry on her account. I have helped her with money,
and she lacks nothing, and is well. Do not allow your-
self to have any doubts as to her welfare.

Although this letter must necessarily be brief, I am
glad to send you this good news.
Believe me.

Your very dear friend,

ISMAËL SaLAR-EL-AcHAIR."

The Rt. Rev. Pierre Aziz, Bishop of Salmas

CHAPTER II

The Experience of the Rt. Reverend Petros Aziz, Chal-
dean Bishop of Salmas

I received a letter from The Rt. Rev. Suleiman, Arch-
bishop of Diarbekir, written near the close of the year
1918, in which he told me that on Wednesday, the 20th
of November, the Bishop of Salmas, Pierre Aziz
had arrived at his house.

He was accompanied by five priests, five women and
one child, all of whom were Chaldeans from Persia. He
stated that they were in a lamentable condition owing
to the hardships they had been forced to undergo, and
that, though alive, the ravages wrought by hunger, thirst
and exposure were only too apparent.

He said that they had been imprisoned for two months
in Persia, and had then been deported, being forced to
cover on foot the entire distance from Urmia to Diar-
bekir which took them 57 days.

They arrived in rags, without covering of any kind for
their feet or heads, and infested with vermin.

"After having had them medically treated," the Arch-
bishop wrote, "we provided them with clean linen; and

304 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

they are now in the Bishop's house awaiting an oppor-
tunity to go to Mosul. We are anxious to clothe them
decently before sending them on, but the linens we gave
them were borrowed from poor people who happened to
have a little, and other garments we have absolutely
none. Moreover we really have not the food these poor,
creatures should have.

I regret to tell you that the poor Bishop of Urmia,
Thomas Audo, who was shot in the face, through the
cheek, by a Mohammedan has succumbed to his injury
and has died from blood poisoning."

When the Patriarch came to Paris last February
(1920), I crossed from London to see him, and had the
honor of meeting the Bishop of Salmas, who accom-
panied him on his mission to Europe. He visited London
with the Patriarch.

During this visit he told me all about his experiences
in Persia, and upon my request gave me the following
chapter, which I publish here with his permission.
*********

I have limited myself in this memoir to the description of
the last massacres at Salmas and Urmia. To tell the story of
all the misfortunes this sad war has caused us, would be to
write a volume. I have, therefore, mentioned neither our first

THE EXPERIENCE OF RT. REV. PETROS AZIZ 305

tragic flight of January fourth, 1915, nor the massacre of fifty-
six Christians of my diocese and their priest who were not able
to flee with us. I am ignorant of the total number of those
massacred at Urmia; but do know that eleven of our Catholic
priests were killed there.

I have written here only that of which I have been a witness.

The Christians, who took flight on the eve of the Turkish
occupation of Urmia, and who went to Bakouba, near Bagdad
and to Hamadan, knew nothing of what followed their departure.
The Christians who remained at Urmia were all killed.

It is needless to state that both Urmia and Salmas are in
ruins.

When the Turks occupied Salmas on the 21st of June,
1918, all the Christians of the province fled towards
Urmia. Being their Bishop, I went with them. I
rode on horseback, and my baggage was in my carriage.

Some Kurds caught up with us. They killed both
my servant and my coachman, and took possession of
my baggage.

Others of our Christians from Urmia to the num-
ber of several thousands were surprised by the Kurds of
Ismail Agha, otherwise known as Simko, who extermin-
ated them all.

At Salmas, Ali Ihsan Pasha ordered massacred two
Lazaristes; one of my priests, who was with them; and

306 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

all the men, women and children, except the young
women and girls who had been previously carried away
by Persian nobles. A certain Temour Agha, an inti-
mate friend of Simko, was the moving spirit of these
abductions.

A month after our flight to Urmia, to be exact, on
the 31st of July, 1918, the city was occupied by the
Turkish army. The previous evening, the Assyro-Chal-
deans and the Armenians with all the refugees fled in
the direction of the camp of the English armies.^

But a number of us remained behind, including Bishop
Sontag, Apostolic Delegate, Bishop Thomas Audo, Chal-
dean Archbishop of Urmia, and myself, the Bishop of
Salmas, a great number of our priests and almost a
thousand people. We all took refuge at the Delega-
tion, which is at the same time the mission of the French
Lazaristes.

Amongst us were also a number of Mussulman fami-
lies of Urmia, who had taken refuge at the mission
since February, although hostile to the Christians. Bom-

1 Namely the Assyro-Chaldeans of Mar-Shimoun, the
Armenians of Van and almost all of our Christians from Ur-
mia and Salmas.

THE EXPERIENCE OF RT. REV. PETROS AZIZ 307

barded by the batteries of the Chaldean army, they had
escaped from the hot pursuit of their enemies and sought
refuge in the foreign missions of the Americans and
French. The Delegate hoped that the kind hospitality
that he had given, and the numerous services he had
rendered to these refugees, all notables of the town,
would one day be useful to the Christians.

Among these Mussulmans, was a certain Persian func-
tionary, called Arshad Humayoun, a fanatic and very
wicked. I think he was Chief of Police at Urmia.
On the day when his co-religionists resolved to massacre
the Christians, whilst the streets were resounding with
the howls of the Mussulmans encouraging each other to
the Holy War,^ this man and his suite arrived at the
French Mission. He decided that if the Mussulmans
succeeded in their design, this house would be his share.
If they did not succeed and the Christian army gained
the victory, he would be safe from all danger. In time,
Archad Humayon learnt all the secrets and hiding places
of the mission house.

Sly and deceitful, he swore by the Koran that if ever
the mission were menaced by the Turks he was ready to

- The Jehad.

308 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

save it at the price of his blood. Yet it was he who was
the cause of the massacres.

When the Fourth Corps of the Turkish army, com-
manded by Salah-Eddin Pasha, prepared to enter Urmia,
the " Chettas " arrived first as scouts under the com-
mand of a certain Saleh Effendi.

Now it was that Arshad Humayoun hastened to find
the Persian Governor of Urmia and had him grant
him a party of his men to take possession of a certain
house full of armed and dangerous Armenians. He
meant the French mission where we were and where he
had just been.

We three Bishops were assembled in the room of the
Apostolic Delegate on the ground floor of the house.
Breakfast had just been served. Suddenly, a com-
motion was heard at the door. The Delegate left the
room to find out what was happening. At once we
heard two shots, and two of Arshad Humayoun's ser-
vants came to inform us that the Delegate had been
killed. It was they, themselves, who had assassinated
him by the orders of their master, as was certified by
some women who, having been in the courtyard of the
mission, had been in a position to see it all.

The Rt. Rev. Bishop of Urmia

THE EXPERIENCE OF RT. REV. PETROS AZIZ 309

At the same time, Father Dinkha, Lazarist, was mas-
sacred at the door of another house, where for six
months he had kept, by the order of his superior, some
Mussulmans who had taken refuge there to escape from
the Armenians.

Soon Arshad Humayoun himself appeared. We re-
minded him of the promises he had made to come to
our aid in such circumstances. But, instead of fulfilling
his word, he ransacked the house from top to bottom,
searching for every bit of money we might possess, and
all that the Chaldeans of Salmas, of Urmia and else-
where had committed to our trust.

He had hardly gone, carrying off his booty, when a
Persian from the village of Balar entered and demanded
money. Archbishop Audo advanced to protest with
him. The villain took aim and fired and the Bishop fell.
As for myself, to escape death, I had to give up my
pectoral cross, my ring and my purse.

Then came Saleh Effendi to ascertain on the spot if
there really were Armenian rebels there, as he had been
informed by Arshad. We implored him to save us. He
promised, but he also demanded money. One of the
priests with us promised it to him if he would accompany

310 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

him to the house of a notable Mussulman where all his
belongings were stored. Whereupon we all went out
together from the French Mission, Archbishop Audo,
whom we thought dead, arising and accompanying us.

Arrived at our destination, Saleh Efïendi went in with
the priest and left us in the hands of four Kurdish
soldiers. The latter commenced to torture us in the
hope of extracting money. They tore out our beards
and began to lash our heads with a whip. They cut ofï
one of Father Paul Sliwa's ears. And me they promised
my life if I would return with them to the French Mis-
sion and give them anything that might still be there.
Two Kurds went with me.

At the mission, a horrible sight met our view ! In the
courts, the corridors and the rooms, a crowd of infidels,
men and women, armed with guns and sabres were mur-
dering men, women and children, after having completely
stripped them. They did not shoot them, but cut them
down with sabres and stilettos.

The few individuals who escaped informed us later
that my secretary had been knocked down by blows of
a cudgel. Having first stripped off his clothes, they tore
his beard so violently that a piece of flesh was torn

THE EXPERIENCE OF RT. REV. PETROS AZIZ 311

out. They finished him with blows on the head with
a mace.

The young girls were carried off, Archad Humayoun
reserving the prettiest for himself.

It was in the middle of these horrors that I arrived
at the French mission. Everything was pillaged, and
I could find nothing to offer to the Kurds, to whom I
made excuses. Their fury was about to burst, when,
happily, a Turkish officer, a certain Zuhdi Bey, arrived
and asked me who I was. I replied that I was the
Bishop, originally from Mossoul. " I know Mossoul,"
he replied, and began to speak Arabic. The Kurds dared
not ill-treat me before an officer.

I implored the latter to save me. He invited me to
follow him, and we went out to rejoin the companions
we had left at the Mussulmans' gate. We met Saleh
Effendi, who ordered Zuhdi Bey to conduct us before
the Commandant.

They made us walk for two hours along the roads
with bare heads and feet; and, to make us keep up with
the chief, who rode before us, they drove us on with
blows of their whips and the stocks of their rifles. The
poor Archbishop was exhausted.

312 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

The Persian Governor of the town, Idjlal-Elmoulk,
before whom they conducted us, did not even deign to
look at us, as we squatted in the courtyard at the foot
of a wall, eating a morsel of bread we had begged on
the way.

An hour later, they put us in prison, and we passed
an infernal night, lying on the pavement.

Next day, they took us before the Commandant. There
we found three others of our priests and a hundred
Christians. The Commandant ordered us to be im-
prisoned.

Archbishop Audo was taken to the American hospital
outside the town, his condition being very grave.

During our detention, the massacres continued, for
the Turks had granted three days and nights to the
Persians to take their revenge on the Christians, and
every night the whole week we could hear the noise of
the carts carrying ofï the bodies which were thrown into
ditches to hide them.

In prison, they gave us only enough bread to assuage
our hunger. The examinations began. Against me they
could allege nothing very serious except this : that Father
L'Hotellier, Lazariste, had said that I had fled with my

THE EXPERIENCE OF RT. REV. PETROS AZIZ 313

secretary to escape from the Turks, and that therefore;
I must be culpable to be obliged to fly. I replied that
in my position as Bishop I was obliged to stay with
my flock, and since my people took refuge at Urmia,
I was obliged to follow, and that I was myself a Turkish
subject. Besides, I had another reason for undertaking
this journey, I had to consult the Pope's representative,
residing at Urmia, to receive his instructions. When I
mentioned the name of the Delegate, Bishop Sontag,
they questioned me about his murder and the pillage
of his house. The judge, Akram Bey, asked me the
most minute details about this affair; and next day
arrested Archad Humayoun and his servants.

Finally, the order was given to transport all Christian
prisoners to Salmas. We were in all five hundred persons.

After an hour of forced marching, we arrived at a
village, where they made us encamp for the night, in
a field close to the tents of the Turkish soldiers. We
had neither beds, nor coverings and exhausted with
fatigue and hunger, suffered from exposure.

The next morning, we were preparing to begin our
march, when a telegram arrived from Urmia, order-
ing my priests and myself to be returned there. We were

314 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

needed to give testimony in regard to the money, stolen
from the Delegate.

Again, therefore, we were imprisoned at Urmia, and
from that time on, we had no more news of our com-
panions, the other prisoners. At one time we heard they
were at Salmas, helping with the wheat harvest, and at
another that they had been deported to Van.

Mgr. Audo had remained at the hospital. Although
he received medical attention, he was ill-treated by the
soldiers, who struck him on the head and otherwise mal-
treated him, so that when one day he came back to
prison, he was a pitiable sight. Too ill to stay with us,
he was taken back to hospital, where a few days later
he expired.

One day an officer of high rank visited us. Learn-
ing that I was originally from Mosul, he spoke to me
in Arabic and asked the cause of our detention. I ex-
plained our case. He exhorted me to present a petition
to the Council of War that I might prove my innocence
and demand my liberty. Pretending that I was ignorant
of the Turkish language, he invited me to make it in
Arabic, and he would himself translate it. I learned

THE EXPERIENCE OF RT. REV. PETROS AZIZ 315

later that this officer was an Arab of Damascus, named
Ibrahim Edham Bey, and that he was Chief of Staff.
My petition made a good impression. I asked to be sent
to Tiflis or Taurus, and the commandant promised Ed-
ham Bey to send us to one or other of these towns.

But affairs dragged on slowly and the promise was
not fulfilled. We learned at last, to our consternation,
that they were sending us to Van.

A certain Ahmed Bey, originally of Egypt and whose
acquaintance we had made in prison, gave us a letter
of introduction to his friend, Adham Fazly Effendi, a
man of considerable influence at Van. Ahmed Bey wrote
to his friend,

" I recommend to you these reverend and learned
persons. They have rendered great services to the Mus-
sulmans of whom they have saved many thousands from
being massacred by the Armenians. You will, there-
fore, do all in your power for them."

The Governor of Van, Haidar Bey, refused to receive
us and assigned us as our habitation a village three hours
distant from the town, where the Armenian prisoners
were.

316 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

As we could not remain one night at Van, it was im-
possible to deliver my letter to Adham Fazly Effendi.
The officer who guarded us, questioned us most minutely
on our affairs, and in turn we asked him if he knew
Adham Fazly Effendi.

" I know him very well," he said to us, " what do you
want with him?"

" We have a letter for him from Urmia."

Great was our joy when he said laughing that he was
Adham Fazly in person. We gave him the letter, and
from that moment we became the object of his care.

He was the chief of the prison guard established in
the village. Immediately, he ordered the best house
prepared for us, offered us tea and furnished us with
everything that we needed. He spoke a little literary
Arabic and was delighted to converse in the language
of the Koran and even to hear me recite some verses of
it by heart.

But this did not last long as five days later, came
the order to transport the prisoners to Diarbekir. We
were obliged to be of the number. Adham Effendi accom-
panied us as far as Bitlis and procured for us every
comfort possible. In the boat he installed us in the

THE EXPERIENCE OF RT. REV. PETROS AZIZ 317

best place and at Tatuan he provided us with a tent,
and put two policemen at our disposal.

He did more. Whilst we were waiting for the beasts,
which were to carry us to BitHs, he preceded us in
order to choose a suitable habitation. Indeed, he pre-
pared the functionaries for our reception that every-
where we were received with benevolence. Adham Ef-
f endi was unwilling to leave us until he had confided us to
another person as well disposed towards us as himself.
This man was a Christian. He was Dr. Joseph Neema, of
Beyrouth, a member of the Turkish ambulance.

We left Bitlis in company with the Armenian convoy.
On the way, a great number of these unfortunates, espe-
cially the women and children, fell dead of exhaustion,
and the road was strewn with corpses.

While we slept at the quarters of the soldiers before
arriving at Garzan, the guards whom the governor had
given us, took to flight, carrying ofï a great part of the
baggage. The last part of the journey was made on
foot, and at Garzan, we heard the news of the Armistice.

When we arrived at Diarbekir, we found our Chaldean
Archbishop, The Right Reverend Suleiman Sabbagh. He
gave us an enthusiastic welcome, furnished us with

318 SHALL THIS NATION DIE?

clothes and food and gave our invalids all the medical
comforts they needed. In spite of his extreme poverty,
he showed the greatest liberality.

At last, thanks to the exertions of our Chaldean Patri-
arch, we were enabled to reach Mossul, where we
arrived on March second.

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