Armenian Atrocities: The Murder of a Nation (1915) by Toynbee Arnold Joseph

Author:Toynbee, Arnold Joseph [Toynbee, Arnold Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-11-30T16:00:00+00:00

V. FALSE EXCUSES.

All this horror, both the concerted crime and its local embellishments, was inflicted upon the Armenians without a shadow of provocation. "We are at war," the Turkish Government will probably reply; "We are fighting for our existence. The Armenians were hoping for the victory of our enemies; they were plotting to bring that victory about. They were traitors at large in a war-zone, and we were compelled to proceed against them with military severity." But such excuses are entirely contradicted by the facts. These Armenians were not inhabitants of a war-zone. None of the towns and villages from which they were systematically deported to their death were anywhere near the seat of hostilities. They were all in the interior of Anatolia, equally tar removed from the Caucasian frontier and from the Dardanelles. There was no possibility of their co-operating with the armies of the Entente, and it was equally impossible that they should attempt an insurrection by themselves, for they were not a compact community. They were scattered in small settlements over a wide country, and were every where in a minority as compared with their Turkish neighbours. Civil and military power were safely in Turkish hands, and the Armenians were particularly unlikely to attempt a coup de main. It must be repeated that these Armenian townsfolk were essentially peaceable, industrious people, as unpractised in arms* and as unfamiliar with the idea of violence as the urban population in Western Europe. The Ottoman Government cannot possibly disguise its crime as a preventive measure, for the Armenians were so far from harbouring designs against it beforehand, that they actually forebore resistance even after the Government had issued their death-warrant. In fact, there are actually only two cases recorded in which the deportation scheme encountered active opposition at all. There was the successful opposition in the Antioch district, where the Armenian villagers took to the hills, and fought for seven weeks with their backs to the sea till they were almost miraculously rescued by the French fleet, under circumstances already related above. And there was the desperate heroism of Shabin Karahissar, a town in the hinter land of Trebizond, where 4,000 Armenians took up arms at the summons to deportation, and held out against the Turkish troops from the middle of May to the beginning of July. Then the Turks brought up reinforcements and artillery and overwhelmed the town with ease. "Karahissar," it is stated in the letter to the Armenian ecclesiastic, "was bombarded; and the whole population, of the country districts as well as the town, has been massacred without pity, not excepting the bishop himself." Nothing could show better than this how little the Turkish Government had to fear from the Armenians, and how eagerly it seized upon the quickest means to their extermination, as soon as an opportunity appeared.

And this was the Government's procedure towards the helpless, unsuspecting Armenians in the towns. When it had to deal with the less tractable peasant communities in the hills, it

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.