Islam, Turkey, and Armenia, and How They Happened/Chapter XXV
CHAPTER XXV.
PRELIMINARY STEPS TAKEN BY THE TURKISH GOVERNMENT TOWARD THE ARMENIAN MASSACRES.
Confronted by the facts mentioned in the preceding chapter, the Turk could not stand indifferent. He had two alternatives, to submit or to oppose. He could appreciate the vitality of this progressive element in his dominion, and, laying aside every prejudice and fanaticism, endeavor to rebuild his decayed government, or take his ancient policy of reducing the Christians low by plundering their accumulated wealth and crushing their honor and aspirations under his feet. He preferred the latter policy, and by Satanic devices prepared the way of destruction in the following steps:
1. The First Step Was to Have a Fanatic and Narrow-Minded Sultan. In 1876 Sultan Aziz was dethroned and secretly murdered with the apparent accusation of "Abusing the Treasury (!) of the Highest Commonwealth." Just three months later his nephew and successor, Sultan Murad, was deposed with the accusation of "Sick-mindedness." Perhaps both accusations were true; yet who can say that nine in ten Sultans did not abuse the wealth of the government and have a sound and practical mind? The fanatic and adventurous party of the palace was after another thing; they planned to have a Sultan that could be used as an instrument in their hands. Prince Humid, the brother of Sultan Murad, was the man. Exceedingly timid and suspicious in nature, feeble in structure, short-sighted in mind, devoid of education, and especially fanatical in religion, Prince Humid, who was every moment fearing the assassinator's approach, was put on the throne and given the titles of "The Finest Pearl of the Age," "The Esteemed Center of the Universe," "The Sultan of the Two Shores and the High King of the Two Seas," "The Crown of Ages and the Pride of All Centuries," "The Greatest of all Caliphs," "The Shadow of God on Earth," "The Crown-giver of all the Princes of the World," "The Gracious Father," "The Victorious Sultan Abdul Humid Khan," etc.
Among the palace party there were men clever enough and able to make plans for the diabolical steps to be taken in the future. Some proselyte Christians, some European adventurers, had the light and mind to study the inner and the outer condition of the country and prepare reports for the mechanical endorsement of the Sultan. By the strict police system of the palace and suspicious guardianship of the imperial harem, it was impossible to see the operations which were going on in that "region of holy happiness," as it is called. All the telegraphic and postal transactions were in the hands of the palace favorites; they could modify, annul or invent any news they thought favorable for their policy. The Sultan was but a slave in their hands.
Gradually "the seat of the prophet" (palace) became the center and the den of the most cruel butcheries and unheard of tortures. Any Ottoman subject, be he a Turk or Christian, a common student or vizier, a stranger or relative to the palace, upon the slightest suspicion or false accusation unfavorable to their plans would be summoned to the horrible circles of "the star palace" and put to death. The bottom of the Bosphorus and Marmoral waters were covered with the bones of slaughtered students and officers, men and women of the imperial harem, until all the authority remained in the hands of a degenerate Arab slave called Aziz Effendi, who blotted the history of the nineteenth century with infamous deeds of cruelty and vice.
2. The Second Step was to caress and enthuse the fanaticism of the Moslem population and show them that a zealous and true caliph was occupying the sacred seat of the prophet. It was very easy to deceive the ignorant. Sultan Hamid ordered several mosques and tekkiehs to be erected around the palace and bigoted shiekhs were rallied in them and encouraged to practice their religious services under the supervision of "the pious sovereign," who himself was very regular to attend these mosques for his Friday noon prayer, which is called "selamlik" (the procession of the Sultan and the princes and all civil, military and religious chief officers, encircled by thousands of soldiers and spectators).
The public criers repeatedly walked in the streets and bazaars of Constantinople to inform the Moslem population of the absolute will of the Sultan that the women cover their faces with veils when they went in the streets—which met the ideal of the fanatic majority—and the necessity of Ramazan fasting was discussed and enforced everywhere. The ruined mesjids and the Mohametan chapels were repaired and opened for public prayers and the believers were enforced to attend them. The schools were started and religious leaders were sent to neglected Moslem villages and towns. Lightning-stricken minarets were repaired and the unceasing cry of muezzin was heard upon them. The disputed properties of the mosques were secured from the hands of the local beys or agas and delivered into the hands of the clergy. The annual pilgrim caravan of the Sultan, loaded with great riches and in Oriental pomp, started on its journey in the streets of Scutari, and continued for weeks, until the heavy-laden camels sat in front of the door of the kabeh, the holy temple at Mecca. The sacred mantle of the Prophet Mehamet, kept in the closets of the old seraglio, was kissed by the Sultan and all palace authorities every 14th of Ramazan, the memorial day of Mohamet's "journey to Heaven." The holy banner of the religious wars, ever ready to lead the Moslem hosts against the "infidels," showed itself in the hand of "the conqueror," Sultan Hamid—though he has never been out of the capital since his enthronement.
This central zeal made its favorable effect felt in the remotest parts of the empire, and a very great majority of the Moslem population thought Sultan Hamid II. as one of the most proper representatives in the chair of Mohamet. And the spirit of Islam took a new fire all over the country, and the chronic anti-Christian enthusiasm began to boil the blood of the followers of Islam.
3. The Third and a Natural Step was the restraint put on the Christian subjects. This began to show itself in the slow and gradual exclusion of the Armenian students and officers from their positions. Then the number of Armenian schools and churches was decreased by not allowing the new ones to be established, and closing some of the former ones for trifling reasons. Sultan Hamid is said to have given firmans only for one new Armenian church near the frontiers of Russia, and for the repairing of a few, while he ordered scores of churches and schools and other institutions to be disbanded. Almost all literary, educational, charitable and economical societies, even the Young Men's Christian Associations, were prohibited and dissolved when discovered. The programs of the schools and the text-books were minutely examined. Armenian and universal histories, geography and readers, which contained direct or indirect allusions to the above subjects, foreign atlases, statistics, historical novels, all were confiscated and officially prohibited. Teachers who could not be made blind instruments in their hands were expelled, imprisoned, tortured, and in many cases killed. Christian doctors, lawyers, merchants and influential members were arrested by false accusations. Even the priests and the ministers of the gospel were not left out of this detrimental persecution.
Correspondence and traveling were strictly guarded and almost entirely prohibited. Immigration to any foreign country, and even to the Turkish seacoast cities was absolutely forbidden to the Armenians. Many Armenians who had official pass-ports for some Turkish city, as Constantinople, Smyrna or Beirout were arrested, imprisoned in the ports of Trebizond, Samsoun, Mersina and Alexandretta or sent back to their own town. All the Armenians who escaped to Europe or the United States could do so only by suffering terrible hardships and perils and by bribing the police. An Armenian was several times captured and sent back to Harpoot, and at last, in his sixth attempt, succeeded in reaching a French steamer for the United States by swimming about two miles to where it was anchored.
The clergy and influential men were forced to sign false reports or accusations prepared by the government. Blackmailing became a universal practice among the Turkish officers, every town and village was besieged, every road was watched by detectives and officious officers ever ready to rob the innocent. The news of the Sassoun massacres in 1894 was not heard in other parts of Armenia and Asia Minor until four months after the event. No one could go safely in the streets with a manuscript in his pocket, however harmless it might be. Any policeman would at any time attack him and get the paper and take it, with its owner, before the governor, who, generally without examination, would order the poor Armenian to be imprisoned. Several days, and very often weeks, would pass until that paper—perhaps a mother's letter or a discourse on botany—could be handed to its owner and several hundred piasters demanded for his release. If that paper had contained anything directly or indirectly about the government, or some words that the examiner's arbitrary and vicious will could give an unfavorable interpretation, the poor man could not expect to come out of his prison.
Turkish Prisons are always attached to the city hall and in its dark and damp basement. These prisons, far from being the means of correction, are the most terrible device of bribery, vengeance, cruelty and suffering, especially for the poor Christians who are shut in these subterranean hells under the name of political prisoners. For them there is no law, no justice, no conscience and no name. Exposed to cold, hunger, thirst, flogging, bodily tortures of every description, made to squat in deep mud, sitting in freezing water, pulling out of mustache and beard, hanging head downward, burning portions of the body with red-hot tongs, pouring filth over the head, burying the head in manure and violation of personal honor, these are the common tortures which could be mentioned among the various unspeakable brutalities perpetrated upon the poor, helpless Christians daily.
"The Inquisitorial dungeons of the Middle Ages," says one, "may be regarded as paradise compared with these nineteenth century hells of Turkish barbarity."
4. Another step as a preparation for the Armenian massacres was the organization of the "Hamidieh troops." These troops, which consisted largely of Kurdish chiefs and their allies, were at first supposed to be the means of precaution against the impending invasion of Russian Kossacks from Caucasia, near Kurdistan, but soon after it was clearly seen that the plan was for an internal massacre of the Armenians, with whom these Kurdish tribes lived for centuries, sometimes on friendly terms and very often in severe enmity. The Turks, however fanatical they may be, are cowardly and lazy, especially prone to plunder property and outrage women, while Kurds, not inferior in the same barbarities, are ferocious murderers. During the last massacres how often the leaders of the government were heard to cry aloud among the mobs, "Stupid Turks! you are absorbed again in plunder and are not killing giaours! Kill the men, and the women, and the property will naturally be yours! Kill the bee, and the honey is yours! Allah!" And this is a proved fact, that wherever the Kurdish Hamidieh troops were let loose, as in Ourfa, Gurin, Severek, Egin, etc., the devastation and butchery was complete. Kurds are more murderous than religious Moslems, and whenever the drum of slaughter sounds in their ears they can not control their blood-thirsty natures, be it excited against Christians or Turks. In the history of Turkish militia this organization may be regarded the most malicious device next to that of Janissaries.