CHAPTER I

TURKISH MASSACRES, 1822-1909

Mohammedanism has been propagated by the sword and by violence ever since it first appeared as the great enemy of Christianity, as I shall show in a later chapter of this book.

It has been left to the Turk, however, in more recent years, to carry on the ferocious traditions of his creed, and to distinguish himself by excesses which have never been equaled by any of the tribes enrolled under the banner of the Prophet, either in ancient or modern times.

The following is a partial list of Turkish massacres from 1822 up till 1904:

1822 Chios, Greeks 50,000 1823 Missolonghi, Greeks 8,750 1826 Constantinople, Jannisaries 25,000 1850 Mosul, Assyrians 10,000 1860 Lebanon, Maronites 12,000 1876 Bulgaria, Bulgarians 14,700 1877 Bayazid, Armenians 1,400 1879 Alashguerd, Armenians 1,250 1881 Alexandria, Christians 2,000 1892 Mosul, Yezidies 3,500 1894 Sassun, Armenians 12,000 1895-96 Armenia, Armenians 150,000 1896 Constantinople, Armenians 9,570 1896 Van, Armenians 8,000 1903-04 Macedonia, Macedonians 14,667 1904 Sassun, Armenians 5,640 ------- Total 328,477

To this must be added the massacre in the province of Adana in 1909, of thirty thousand Armenians.

So imminent and ever-present was the peril, and so fresh the memory of these dire events in the minds of the non-Mussulman subjects of the sultan, that illiterate Christian mothers had fallen into the habit of dating events as so many years before or after “such and such a massacre.”