the period of Germany's hegemony in Turkey. I frequently reported home to my newspaper matter concerning the Armenian persecutions and the fact that they were due to a guiding spirit of bestial Young Turk chauvinism. The Foreign Office followed these reports with interest. But I never saw any evidence in my newspaper that my expositions of the situation were bearing fruit. Finally, at the time my wife, in such dramatic fashion, flung her curse in Germany's teeth, I resolved no longer to represent my newspaper. I have to thank the sufferings of those poor massacred and tortured Armenians for my spiritual and moral-political enfranchisement. Armenians Killed With Axes by Turks Harrowing Account by President of Anatolia College THE HE slaughter of all the Armenian Faculty members of Anatolia College, Marsovan, Northern Asia Minor, with 1,200 others, by Turkish peasants, whose pay for the work was the privilege of stripping the clothing off their victims' bodies, was described by the Rev. George E. White, President of the college, upon his return to the United States in the Autumn of 1917. The massacres were committed at night by order of the Turkish Government, he said, the Armenians being sent out in lots of a hundred or two hundred to their doom and their bodies rolled into prepared burial trenches. "One group of our college boys asked permission to sing before they died and they sang Nearer, My God, to Thee,' then they were struck down," Dr. White said. The number of Armenians who have been massacred is estimated by the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief in New York City at from 500,000 to 1,000,000, while there are a million still living in need of immediate aid. Dr. White, who is now living in Minneapolis, was ordered to leave Marsovan by the Turkish Government. He was formerly pastor of the Congregational Church in Waverley, Iowa. "The situation for Armenia," he said, became excessively acute in the Spring of 1915, when the Turks determined to eliminate the Armenian question by eliminating the Armenians. The Armeian questions arise from political and eligious causes. On the pretext of searching for de serting soldiers, concealed bombs, weapons, seditious literature or revolutionists, the Turkish officers arrested about 1,200 Armenian men at Marsovan, accompanying their investigations by horrible brutalities. There was no revolutionary activity in our region whatever. The men were sent out in lots of one or two hundred in night 'deportations' to the mountains, where trenches had been prepared. Coarse peasants, who were employed to do what was done, said it was a 'pity to waste bullets,' and they used axes. "Then the Turks turned on the women and children, the old men and little boys. Scores of oxcarts were gathered, and in the early dawn as they passed the squeaking of their wheels left memories that make the blood curdle even now. Thousands of women and children were swept away. Where? Nowhere. No destination was stated or intended. Why? Simply because they were Armenians and Christians and were in the hands of the Turks. "Girls and young women were snatched away at every turn on the journey. The girls sold at Marsovan for from $2 to $4 each. I know, because I heard the conversation of men engaged in the traffic. I know because I was able to ransom three girls at the price of $4.40. "The misery, the agony, the suffering were beyond power of words to express, almost beyond the power of hearts to conceive. In bereavement, thirst, hunger, loneliness, hopelessness, the groups were swept on and on along roads which had no destination. i 1 C p "I received word from Ambassador Morgenthau that our premises would not be interfered with. Next morning the Chief of Police came with armed men and demanded surrender of all Armenians connected with the college, girls' school, and hospital. We claimed the right to control our grounds as American citizens. More than two hours we held them at bay. They brought more armed men. They again demanded surrender of the Armenians. I refused. They challenged me for resisting the Turkish Government. They said any one who did so was liable to immediate execution. "They broke open our gates, brought in ox carts, and asked where the Armenians were. I refused to tell. They went through the buildings, smashing down the doors. Then our Armenian friends, feeling that further attempt on our part to save them would bring more harm probably than good, came forth, professed themselves loyal Turkish subjects, and offered to do what was required. An oxcart was assigned each family, with a meagre supply of food, bedding, and clothing. The mother sat on the load with her children about her, the father prepared to walk beside the cart. I offered prayer, and then the sad procession, carrying seventy-two persons from the college and hospital, moved away. "These teachers were men of character, education, ability, and usefulness, several of them representing the fine type of graduates from American or went in safety for about fifty miles. Then the men were separated from the women, their hands were bound behind their backs, and they were led away. The eight Armenian members of the staff of instruction of Anatolia College were among the slain. The women and children were moved on and on. No one knows where, and no one knows how many of them are still living. "The Government officers plowed the Armenian cemetery in Marsovan and sowed it with grain as a symbol that no Armenian should live or die to be buried there. No Armenian student or teacher was left to Anatolia College, and of the Protestant congregation in the city of 950 souls more than 900, with their pastors, were swept away. It was a Government movement throughout-a movement against the Armenian people. "These things are typical of what took place through the six provinces of the Turkish Empire known as Armenia. The Armenians are the Yankees of the East -the merchants, manufacturers, capitalists, artisans, and among the best of the farmers. One-quarter of a million people succeeded in escaping into Russian Caucasus, and among them American representatives have done wonderful work in caring for the sick, giving bread to the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for orphans. Probably a million more went to Syria and Mesopotamia, where they have been dependent upon American relief, which is helping this worthy people to pull through alive." The Appalling Plight of Serbia D A Chapter of Balkan Atrocities ETAILS of the terrible plight of the surviving population in Serbia have penetrated the veil of silence in sufficient numbers to establish the certainty that in the Autumn of 1917 the unfortunate nation is rapidly perishing of starvation and cruelty. The story of atrocities extends back to the very beginning of Bulgar-Teutonic occupation. Dr. Anthony Anthanasiados, a physician formerly in the service of the Serbian Government, furnished The London Times with the following narrative from Serbian Field Headquarters: When the Serbian Army retreated in the Autumn of 1915 I was at my headquarters at Prishmina and decided to stay there. Bulgarian cavalry entered the town Nov. 11, followed by German and Austrian infantry. The first day the troops behaved well. On the morrow, seeing that shops remained closed, the troops plundered them bare. The Germans led in the pillage. the The violence was not confined to the shops, but private dwellings, too, were looted. The houses then were torn down Several and the wood was used for fuel. forcible contributions were levied upon the and priests, of whom not one was left at liberty. The Turkish residents had been rejoicing before the arrival of the allies of Turkey, but they soon had cause to regret their attitude. One Turkish notable told me his people were exasperated beyond endurance by the dishonoring of their women at the hands of the Bulgars and Austro-Germans. German officers were among the criminals. Often the Turkish citizens were compelled to be the spectators of such scenes. Finally I was able to leave and arrived at Belgrade, where I found conditions similar. The houses had been pillaged and many trainloads of loot sent to Austria. I was forced to proceed to Nish, where I became acquainted with several Bulgarians whom I attended in my professional capacity. One of them, Dr. Tendas, related that he caused twenty-four Serbian professors to be brought to a certain orown hands, he chard, where, with his I overheard another brained them all. Bulgarian telling quite calmly how he had killed two priests and two school teachers. All this was done with the object of eradicating the Serbian population. A Lieutenant's Experience The Serbian Legation in London issued in September, 1917, a harrowing account of the sufferings of the Serbian people as related by Vidak Koprivitsa, a Lieutenant in the Serbian Combined Division, who, as an invalid, was recently exchanged by the Austro-Hungarian authorities, and is now in a hospital in France. Lieutenant Koprivitsa, writing to Serbian friends in England, says that he was taken prisoner along with other seriously wounded Serbian officers in the ers. The German General who visited the town asked Prince Lopkovitch why he had not yet erected the gallows. The Austrians quickly took the hint and put up gallows in all the larger towns and villages, and pictures showing people hanging on them were soon circulated and disFrom tributed among the population. Vrntsi the Lieutenant and his fellowsufferers were removed to Keczkemet, and some months later to a town called Briks, where was an internment camp for Russians. After a stay of five days at Briks they were removed to Heinrichsgrun, where in the earlier days of 1916 there had been 30,000 Serbian soldiers and 200 Serbian officers. In this camp the misery was appalling. At first from twenty-five to thirty persons were dying daily, and the number grew rapidly. Many of the unhappy Serbian soldiers found their graves there through starvation, disease, and hard labor in the mines. Officers as well as soldiers were barefooted and in rags-mere ghosts of men. The Camp of Death The wounded men were given some wretched wash, which went by the name of soup. The "bread" they could hardIt was so bitter. ly swallow, it was made out of horse chestnuts, acorns, and potato peelings. The officers in the hospitals four times a week received as a special favor about a quarter of a pound of horseflesh and some rye bread. The huts were deadly places, and the nights were bitterly cold, not only because of the wretched shelter, but owing to the lack of covering. There were 3,000 men affected by tuberculosis who were absolutely without care or attention. Heinrichsgrun was just a Serbian cemetery, rows of graves being continually added with due regularity as fresh batches of prisoners came in. Here died more than 20,000 victims. The complaints and cries for help of the dying men directed to the Serbian Red Cross and to the Spanish Ambassador in Vienna brought no response. In August, 1916, Bulgarian officers visited this camp and began to pick out as "recruits" those men who hailed from the territories in Serbia occupied by the armies of King Ferdinand. At the beginning of September, 1915, the Lieutenant was removed to Aschach, where 150 officers and 25,000 soldiers were crowded together. Here there reigned the same grim horrors. From this camp, as well as from others, the Austrians carried away Serbian soldiers to the Italian front in order that they might work on the construction of fortifications and in trench digging. In these camps are placed along with the prisoners of war interned civilians-women, old men, and children -a great many children between 10 and 12 years of age. The Lieutenant saw with his own eyes these wretched boys and girls picking up scraps of food from the drain-courses. Letter Written in Blood It A letter in possession of the Serbian authorities, written by a Serbian who had barely escaped hanging by the Bulgarian authorities, was published in the Paris newspapers in August, 1917. revealed the fact that there had been a futile attempt at insurrection in April, 1917, followed by even greater cruelties than those which had provoked it. The writer was a refugee in the mountains, and the letter, written with his own blood for ink, was smuggled out by a Serbian sentry. It advises all Serbians to kill themselves rather than submit to capture; it tells of the forcible deportation of thousands of children to Constantinople; of the frightful tortures inflicted upon prisoners before they are executed by the Bulgarians, such as hanging by the tongue; of gibbets erected everywhere to dispose of Serbian prisoners of war, especially of insurrectionists. The names of both sender and recipient have been suppressed for obvious reasons, but both are on file in the Serbian archives with the original of the letter, which runs in part as follows: I escaped April 25 from the Bulgarian prison where I was incarcerated with twenty comrades after having been surrounded and captured in the revolt near I was taken, put in prison and condemned to be hanged, but during the night my friend arrived with a band in Prokouplie, killed the sentinels and rescued me. In consequence I was able to reach the mountains. There are more than 5,000 of us insurgents. Nearly all of the other mountains are filled with insurgents. The Bulgarians had summoned all the male population between the ages of 16 and 65 in order to incorporate them in the army and send them immediately to the front. At the same time they had gathered together all the young people between 13 and 16 and had sent them to Constantinople. It was this vandal process of these monstrous Mongols that provoked the revolt. The unfortunate mothers, exasperated by the cries of their children as they were carried off by force, attacked the Bulgarians with stones. This was a genuine revolt, to which the Bulgarians replied with gibbets to which they hanged women and children. Finally the people, exhausted and revolting, threw themselves upon the Bulgarian depots. Men and women carried off arms and ammunition, first to Prokouplie, then to Leskovatz, Lebane, Vrania, Viassotintze, Zayetchar, Kniajevatz, Pojarevatz, and the villages. Meanwhile two Bulgarian divisions arrived, and a bloody battle developed; we should have been able to defeat the Bulgarians as we had defeated the Germans if they had not used a cowardly strategy to prevent us from attacking them; they forced the women and children to march in front of their ranks. Unable to fire upon our own people, we withdrew as far as Korvingrad, where a new battle began and where the Hungarians attacked us from behind. We made an opening and took refuge in the mountains. Since I was dead from fatigue I was taken prisoner, and with a dozen other insurgents was condemned to be hanged. Waiting while the gibbet was prepared, we were incarcerated in the prison of Prokouplie, but one of our bands killed the garrison and rescued us. So here I am in the mountain of It may be that when you read these lines I shall no longer be among the living, but the insurrection cannot be snuffed out so easily, for the Bulgarians are proceeding systematically to exterminate our nation. On the 25th of April they placed aboard trains at Belotintze 8,000 children between the ages of 12 and 15, bound for Constantinople. Many of the children jumped from the cars along the way, and found death in that manner. Victims of Exploitation The Serbian Government on Aug. 29, 1917, issued a protest to the world against the treatment of Serbia by the Austrian and Bulgarian authorities. Referring to the economic exploitation of the occupied territory the protest said: They (the Austrians and Bulgarians) change the laws on taxation and customs; they introduce new monopolies, abolish the moratorium; force the inhabitants to subscribe to their war loans and make donations to their Red Cross. From an economic standpoint they consider the regions occupied as definitely acquired by them. The evident aim of their economic administration is to bring about the ruin of the inhabitants of the country under occupation. They have crushed with new taxation a people which was economically exhausted, and have forced on them new customs duties and fresh monopolies. They are extorting more than 100,000,000 crowns from this people for debts due to Austrians and Germans and in addition several million crowns for subscription to war loans. Serbian money (the only money in which our population could make its payments) has been arbitrarily reduced to one-half its value. At the same time the Serbian Government gave notice that at the peace negotiations after the war Serbia would demand indemnities both for the Serbian State and for individuals. Serbs Robbed of Harvests According to a statement issued on Sept. 4, 1917, by the Serbian Press Bureau in London, the Austrians, Germans, and Bulgarians carried off all of this year's harvests in Serbia, depriving the surviving families of food. Meat, lard, butter, and spices are altogether unobtainable. Most families have only one loaf of bread a week. There is virtually no milk in Serbia, and thousands of women and children whose men folk perished Ac in the war are doomed to starve. cording to this report, 80,000 Serbian prisoners have perished in Austria and Hungary. The Journal de Génève, published in Switzerland, commenting upon Lord Robert Cecil's assurance of Serbia's ultimate liberation, grimly remarks that there may be no Serbs left alive to benefit by reparations and restitutions unless something is done in the meantime to save them. It continues: Nobody knows the exact returns of the Serbian losses, but, according to the most optimistic estimates, one-fourth of the population has already perished owing to the war, to epidemics, to want of food, and to privations of all kinds. If we consider only the men, and more especially those of the educated classes, the proportion is even far greater. On account of this the birth rate will decrease for years, and of what value for the population will be the children who have lived or are born under the influence of such physiological distress? Serbia is not be ing supplied with food, and her fate is therefore many times worse than that of Belgium. The Americans and the Swiss gave her some help last year, but this work of charity is now interrupted because the Americans have themselves entered the war, and no longer have access to Serbia, and because Switzerland, being rationed, no longer disposes of foodstuffs for export, and is no longer permitted to procure them elsewhere to convey them to the necessitous Serbs, although she could do it in perfect safety, thanks to the facilities granted her by the Austro-Hungarian Government. The same applies to the Serbian prisoners in the German and Austrian camps; there the last representatives of the flower of the manhood of the Serbian population are dying by inches. In Geneva one has seen several convoys of repatriated Serbs, all tubercular or scrofulous in consequence of their long privations and insufficient food. |