Chapter XV

.)

FOOTNOTES:

[53] Ubicini, “Letters on Turkey,” Vol. II, pp. 256-7.

[54] Muradian, “The History of the Apostolic Church of Armenia,” p. 35. (This work is in the Armenian language.)

[55] Ubicini, “Letter on Turkey,” Vol. II, pp. 285-6.

[56] Lynch, “Armenia,” Vol. I, p. 275.

[57] Moffat, “Church History in Brief,” p. 142.

[58] Malon, “The Life and Times of St. Gregory,” p, 31. London.

[59] Lynch, “Armenia,” Vol. I, p. 314.

[60] Bryce, “Transcaucasia and Ararat,” pp. 341-2.

[61] Muradian, “The History of the Apostolic Church of Armenia,” pp. 117-121, 127-128.

VII

THE PERIOD OF SUBJECTION

The Mameluke Sultans of Egypt were the unhappy instruments of harassing and finally overthrowing the Armenian independence in Cilicia, but they did not enjoy the pleasure of ruling over Armenia, nor Cilicia and the Armenians. The course of events was taking a different shape in Western Asia.

By a succession of influxes of the Mongolian hordes into the country, during the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries, the power of the Caliphs of Bagdad was broken into pieces and a vast empire was formed by the Seljukian Turks. After the death of the third sovereign, Malek Shah, the empire was divided into various principalities. One of these became a kingdom of considerable importance, lying on the frontier of the Greek empire, having Nice, afterwards Iconium (now Koniah), its capital. The same influx of the Mongolian invaders had not yet stopped on the one hand; on the other hand the Western Crusaders did render some service in annoying this kingdom, while the Mameluke Sultans by no means were at peace with the Seljukian Turks.

The turbulent condition of Western Asia at this period (13th century) could well afford the growth of a new power, or dynasty, provided this power was in sympathy with the prevalent religion, Mohammedanism, and congenial with the invading hordes. Unfortunately for the Christians, both in Western Asia, and later in Eastern Europe, we find a power, growing out of a nomadic tribe into a formidable empire, which held the Christian world in terror for several centuries. The following is the origin of this empire:

“About the middle of the thirteenth century a tribe of Turks, not of the stock of Seljuk, driven forward by the Mongol invaders, left their camping grounds in Khorasan and wandered into Armenia in search of undisturbed pasturage. After seven years of exile, deeming the opportunity favorable to return, they set out to their ancient possessions. But while fording the Euphrates, the horse of their leader fell with him and he perished in the river. A spot upon its banks now bears the name of the tomb of the Turk. Upon this accident occurring the tribe was divided by his sons into four companies and Ertogrul, the warlike head of one division, resolved to return to the westward and seek a settlement in Asia Minor. While pursuing his course he spied two armies in hostile array. Not willing to be a neutral spectator of the battle he joined himself to the apparently weaker party and his timely aid decided the victory. The conquered were an invading horde of Mongols, the conqueror was Aladdin, the Seljukian Sultan of Iconium, and Ertogrul received from the grateful victor an assignment of territory in his dominions for himself and his people. It consisted of the rich plains around Shughut, in the valley of the Sangarins (called the “country of pasture”), and of the Black Mountains on the borders of Phrygia and Bithynia. The former district was for his winter abode; the latter for his summer encampment. In this domain was nurtured his son Othman, or Osman, who became the founder of a dynasty and an empire. From him the Turks of the present day have the name of Ottoman, or Osmanli, which they universally adopt, rejecting that of Turk with disdain as synonymous with barbarian.”[62]

Othman began to reign about A.D. 1289. The shepherd, warrior, and freebooter were united in his character. He was dependent on the Sultan of Iconium during the life of the latter, but otherwise he was free to prey upon his neighbors and govern his people. After the death of the sultan, who had no sons to succeed him, his kingdom was divided, and Othman became, practically, an independent ruler. He increased and extended his power and territories by gradual encroachments upon the Grecian dominions, and by repeated inroads year after year. He captured Brousa and made it the capital of his government. His son and successor, Orchan, extended the bounds of Othman’s territories with astonishing rapidity. He crossed the Straits of Hellespont and Bosphorus. He appointed his brother, Aladdin, vizier. Aladdin created the system of the standing army in the year 1330.

“But the soldiers (taken from the Turks) proved intractable and could not be brought to submit to the strict discipline involved in military organizations. To obviate this difficulty the expedient was resorted to of rearing up in the doctrine of Islam the children of the conquered Christians inuring them from youth to the profession of arms and forming them into a separate corps. This black invention, as Von Hammer truly characterizes it, was adopted by Aladdin at the instance of Kara (black) Chalil Chenderli, the judge of the Army, and he adds, has ‘a diabolical complexion, much blacker than the gunpowder almost contemporaneously discovered by Schwartz (black) in Europe.’ Hence arose the Janissaries, a name which the westerns have corrupted from the Turkish Jenicheri, signifying the ‘new troops.’ The Corps continued to be recruited from the children of the captives taken in war, or from those Christian subjects, an inhuman tax of every fifth child or one child every fifth year, being rigorously levied upon the families. The number of the Janissaries, originally one thousand, was successively raised to twelve, to twenty, and to forty thousand, immediately connected with the Court, besides a much larger number scattered through the provinces. Hence it has been estimated that not less than half a million Christian children were cruelly torn from their parents, compelled to embrace Islamism, and trained to maintain it with the sword. At length, in the reign of Mohammed IV (A.D. 1648-1687) began the custom of admitting into the regiment the children of the soldiers themselves; and after this innovation, the Janissaries became a kind of military caste, transmitting from father to son the profession of arms.

“In the days of their pristine vigor, the new troops were distinguished by their fanaticism and valor. Through upwards of three centuries, marked by a long series of great battles, they sustained only four single reverses, chiefly from Tamerlane in 1402, and John Humades, the Hungarian general, in 1442. During that period they extended the petty kingdom of Brousa over the vast dominions of Constantine the Great, and made known their prowess from the walls of Bagdad to the gate of Vienna, and from the Caspian Sea to the Nile, while their name was the common terror of Christendom.”[63]

The reason of our apparent deviation by giving at this time an account of the origin and growth of the Turkish empire, will be readily seen in the succeeding pages; for it was with the Turks that the Armenians have mostly had to do during the last five hundred years. Moreover, we would call attention to the fact that the brilliant conquests have not been accomplished by the Tatar Turks, but by the Christian youths, who from their early childhood were cruelly torn away from their parents and paternal Christian religion and compelled to embrace Islamism, and inured to the profession of arms to maintain with the sword the religion of Mohammed.

A considerable number of Armenians driven from the face of the Mongolian invaders, had chosen for themselves the life of voluntary exiles in the Grecian provinces, and towards the end of the fourteenth century after the overthrow of their Cilician independence, the Turkish empire then being nearly a century old, many Armenians became a ready prey to the fanaticism of the Turks.

It has been estimated that not less than 500,000 Christian children were thus cruelly torn from their parents, compelled to embrace Islamism, and trained to maintain it with the sword. How many thousands of families were compelled to exchange their religion, the religion of love and chastity, for the religion of Mohammed, the religion of sensualism and tyranny; how many thousands were massacred because they would not obey such an infernal behest, it is impossible to tell. Suffice it to say that these questions are not imaginary possibilities, but attested facts of history which make up the darkest pages of the Ottoman chronicles. Indeed we would be unwilling to believe them if we had not seen and heard even worse things in the early part of the twentieth century.

While the expatriated Armenians were cruelly treated by the Turks, who were growing in power and increasing in numbers at the expense of the Christians in western and central Asia Minor, those still in Armenia proper received one of the severest calamities ever inflicted upon humanity. The executor of this terrible infliction was the famous Mongolian savage and warrior, Lenk Temur, commonly called Tamerlane (Temur the lame). He made himself the master of an empire extending from the great wall of China to Moscow and to the Mediterranean, having Samarcand his capital. He marched with an immense army against the Persians and in a short time subdued them. He subjugated Bagdad, plundered Aleppo (Hallep), burned down the greater part of Damascus and wrested Syria from the Mameluke Sultan. From the city of Van to the city of Sebastia (Sivas), from one end to the other of Armenia, no city, town or village of any size escaped the notice of the rapacious potentate; he reduced them all to ruinous heaps and ashes. The foreign rulers of the different parts of Armenia had no power whatever, to withstand the terrible army of Temur, which covered the land like an army of locusts. A Kurd, chief by the name of Kara (black) Yusuf, who was assuming control over the Sasoun district and southern part of Armenia, fled from the face of Temur into the mountain fastnesses, where with some of his subjects he wandered until the calamity was past. The city of Van, after a feeble resistance surrendered; the youths were carried as captives, the rest were massacred in various forms. The inhabitants of Sivas surrendered on his solemn promise that “no soldier of his will lift up the sword on them.” He was true to the letter, but not to the spirit of his promise. Four thousand soldiers were roasted to death, and as many were buried alive, and thousands of the very young and old whose hands and feet were tied, were thrown together and trampled under the hoofs of the horses. The spot upon which this barbarous mode of massacre took place, to this day, bears the name of Sev Hokher, signifying in the Armenian language the “Black Plains.” He then marched to meet the Ottoman ruler Bajazet I. Bajazet may deserve a word or two before we hand him over to the tender mercies of Temur--his three predecessors had borne the title of _emir_, commander, but Bajazet changed it for that of Sultan. He was the first also to set the example of fratricide in the royal family, for he caused his only brother to be put to death. The Mohammedan historian trying to justify him, says, “remembering the text of the Koran, that disturbance is worse than execution.” Sigismund of Hungary, with his allies, “a body of French and German knightly auxiliaries, endeavored to cope with the fiery Turk, but was defeated with terrible loss in the battle of Nicopolis in 1396.”

Bajazet, fierce and proud, warlike and bloodthirsty (in the above battle ten thousand prisoners were put to death by his order), acquired the name of Ylderum, ‘lightning,’ on account of his energy and quickness of action. “Elated by his successes, he contemplated a campaign into the heart of Europe, and boasted that he would one day feed his horse at Rome with a bushel of oats on the altar of St. Peter’s.”[64] He who has the destinies of men in His hand, had differently mapped the career of Bajazet, the Ylderum. The lame Temur with his immense army moved westward, and Bajazet eastward to meet the Tatar warrior. The latter fully confident of a victory courted an encounter with the former. Their armies met one another on the plains of Angora. Fierce must have been the conflict. There is always some reason, or excuse for a defeat. It is said that Bajazet was ill at the time and though he was riding on one of the fleetest horses in the field, he could not effect his escape. He was captured and his army scattered in 1402. It is supposed that he died in the following year from natural causes, “aggravated by his inability to brook a reverse of fortune so signal and complete.”

For a few years Temur, the lame, was the lord of Asia and the master of the original seat of the Ottoman. He returned with an immense number of captives and the plunder to the ancient city of the caliphs; there in Samarcand, he was preparing for another campaign into China, when he was removed to the presence of the eternal Judge, the King whose laws he had violated and whose creatures he had destroyed. He died in 1405, in his capital Samarcand, and his vast empire quickly crumbled into small fragments.

The magnificent city of Constantinople, after being the metropolis of a Christian nation over eleven centuries, fell into the hands of the barbarian Turks (1453). In vain, and too late, did the Greeks realize their critical condition, and struggle against the angel of death. The capture of Constantinople by the Turks filled the European nations with consternation. The following is a portion of the letter of Pius II, the Pope who tried to raise a crusade against the Turks:

“The strait of Cadiz has been passed, and the poison of Mohammed penetrates even into Spain.... In other directions, where Europe extends eastward, the Christian religion has been swept away from all the shores. The barbarian Turks, a people hated by God and man, issuing from the east of Scythia, have occupied Cappadocia, Pontus, Bithynia, Troas, Pisidia, Cilicia and all Asia Minor. Not yet content, counting on the weakness and dissensions of the Greeks, they have passed the Hellespont and got possession of nearly all the Grecian cities of Attica ... Achaia, Macedonia, and Trace.

“Still, the royal city of Constantinople did remain the pillar and head of all the East, the seat of patriarch and emperor, the sole dwelling place of Grecian wisdom.... This too, in our own day while the Latins, divided among themselves, forsook the Greeks, has that cruel nation of Turks invaded and spoiled, triumphing over the city that once gave laws to all the East.

“Nor is their savage appetite yet satiated. The lord of the unrighteous people, who is rather to be called a dark brute than a king, a venomous dragon than emperor, he, athirst for human blood, brings down huge forces upon Hungary. Here he harasses the Epirates and here the Albanians; and swelling in his own pride, boasts that he will abolish the lowly gospel and all the law of Christ, and threatens Christians everywhere with chains, stripes, death, and horrid torments....”

Even the great reformer, the immortal Luther, “composed a once popular prayer, suited to the times, to be sung as a hymn in the churches; and Robert Wisdome, afterwards Archdeacon of Ely, appended a translation of it to the metrical version of the Psalms, by Steinhold and Hopkins. It commenced with the lines:

‘Preserve us, Lord, by thy dear word, From pope and Turk, defend us Lord.’”[65]

After the death of Temur, all the rulers whom he had subdued, began to rise and recover their respective reigns. Kara Yusuf returned to Sasoun and resumed his rule over southern Armenia. Temur’s son Sharukh was reigning in Persia and over the eastern portion of Armenia. Iskander (Alexander) the son and successor of Yusuf and Sharukh had a long contest over the southern and eastern part of Armenia (1421-1437). Sharukh finally subdued Iskander--who was also called Shahi Armen, Shah of Armenians--and set his brother Jihan Shal as a ruler, whose seat was in Tabriz, in the province of Azerbaijan, his reign extended over eastern and southern Armenia. Meanwhile in Mesopotamia, a Tatar prince, a Turcoman, by the name of Jehankir, was rapidly growing in power. His son, Uzun (long) Hasan, succeeded the father, and after the death of Jinan Shah he seized the throne of Persia and also reigned over the entire Armenia (1468).

In my endeavor to be brief, I have crowded the history of almost a century into less than a page, but these continuous wars, between the rival princes and rulers, have decimated and destroyed a large portion of the population of Armenia, the Armenians. And when the combatants were exhausted and ceased for a time, then the inevitable sequel of wars, famine, had to take its fearful toll of human life.

It is a miracle that any Armenians at all have been left to the present time. But it seems to me, that God purposely preserved some of them even to the beginning of the twentieth century to prove two things, namely, that the boasted Christian civilization of Europe is a Christless civilization, that Mohammedanism, after thirteen centuries of opportunity and trial has proved itself not a whit better than the barbarism of the past, and even worse in many respects.

Some new warriors were preparing themselves to enter into the arena. Shah Ismail established and founded the Suffavean dynasty of Persia (1499). The Suffaveans claimed that Ali, the fourth Caliph, would have been the successor of Mohammed and the head of Islamism had not Abubeker, Omar, and Osman, usurped his right. They, moreover, claimed lineage from Ali, and thus to be the lawful successor of Mohammed. The Osmali sultans repudiated this right and descent. Though both the Persians and Turks venerate the false prophet, yet they divide the Mohammedans into two sects. The Turks are _sunees_, or _sonees_, orthodox, and they call the Persians _Sheahs_ or heterodox. This difference and the national jealousies between the Turks and Persians furnished these two Islam nations with an occasion for constant war and bloodshed which lasted over two centuries. But alas! the noble land of Ararat had to furnish them the battle-field, and the unfortunate “House of Torgarmah” to suffer the doleful consequence of their bloody conflicts.

Sultan Selim I, who merited the title of “the cruel,” is believed to have caused the death of his father, Bajazet II. He had forced him to abdicate, and while on his way to Adrianople as an exile, he was murdered. Selim was fiercely intolerant in religion. Naturally, all the fanatics loved him. Turning his army of 140,000 eastward he subdued Armenia and Mesopotamia and conducted a successful war in Persia against Shah Ismail. The latter was defeated and barely escaped from capture (1514). Selim captured Tabriz and there he found a dethroned prince of Temur’s race and carried him to Constantinople.

It was a fortunate thing for the Christians, that though this eastern campaign was a religious war it was conducted against the Sheahs or the heterodox Mohammedans; and a formal expression of opinion by the Ulema was, that there was “more merit in killing one Sheah than in shedding the blood of seventy Christians.” Selim’s savage intolerance was so fierce that he thought to annihilate every member of the sect in his dominions.[66]

The conflict between the successors of Selim I and Shah Ismail in Armenia continued with varying fortunes. But one of the notable misfortunes that befel the people was in the reign of Shah Abbas, a magnificent barbarian. He was one of the Shahs of the Suffavian dynasty, and was preparing for a conflict with the Turks in 1605. Pretending that he was afraid he might be compelled to cede the province which he had conquered to the enemy, he gave orders to his army to vacate immediately as many cities and towns as possible, burn them to ashes, and drive the inhabitants into Persia. Within a short time many a city and town lay in ashes, and the country was reduced to a fearful condition of desolation. Thousands sought refuge in mountains and caves. Some found a refuge but others were found by the enemy, and twenty-five thousand families--some before and some after this event--were led into captivity.

This great host of captives was composed of the venerable patriarchs, bishops, priests, old men and women; children of all ages; mothers with their infants in their arms, baptizing them with their tears; gallant young men and beautiful maidens. These all were indiscriminately driven by the Persian soldiers to the banks of the Araxes, where rafts and galleys were in readiness to hasten their crossing the swift waters of the river. With the pretense that the enemy was pressing hard, they compelled many to hasten the crossing by swimming the river, many of them were carried in the current.

Opposite Ispahan these captives were settled and built New Jula (some write Julfa). The Jula proper in Armenia was destroyed by Shah Abbas. The Persians were conquerors in this war: “Upon the sword being drawn the Persians rapidly recovered the provinces wrested from them by Selim and Solimon; and a large Turkish army was signally defeated August the 24th, 1605. Five pashas were slain; the same number were taken prisoners; and the victor continued to receive the heads of his enemies till midnight, when more than twenty thousand had been counted. Shah Abbas performed pilgrimages on foot to the shrines of Moslem saints, and swept their tombs. Yet while doing this he allowed a Roman Catholic convent to be established at Ispahan, stood godfather to the child of Sir Robert Shirley, and even formally received baptism--events to which the Jesuits ascribed his execrable triumphs.”[67]

Sultan Amurath (Murath) IV marched, with a large army, against the Persians, and recovered the provinces of Armenia from the Persians. He then marched and laid siege to Baghdad which the Persians had taken. Ten thousand of the Persian garrison lost their lives during the siege; and twenty thousand more, being the whole number in the town, were massacred during and immediately after the capture. A few days afterwards an equal number of the inhabitants, who were Sheahs, were slaughtered by the triumphant Sonnees (1638).

After this the Armenians in Armenia enjoyed a comparative rest of over eighty years. They had some time to repair their churches and schools, monasteries and homes. They did all these and they also recuperated and raised a new and sturdy posterity to meet the hardships of the eighteenth century.

During the early part of the eighteenth century some disturbances in Persia and Armenia made the Armenians in both of these countries greatly to suffer. Then again the Turks and the Persians were not always at peace with one another. The Russians, moreover, were slowly moving southward and preparing to enter into the contest. They contended with the Persians over the northwestern portion of Armenia and other provinces belonging to the latter from 1772-1828. In their contest the Armenians rendered a signal service to the Russians and decided the victory for them.

“From 1813 to 1829 the Armenians appear to think their emancipation at hand. Russia stood in need of them to make a diversion against the Ottoman forces and held out to them the hope of becoming an independent principality, under the protection of the Czar. Her promises were believed, and, in their devotion to their destined liberator, they withstood for more than six weeks an army of eighty thousand Persians who were marching against Russia, and prevented them from crossing their frontier; but these services reaped a poor reward, for not only were the Russians faithless to their promises, but they seized the opportunity of some trifling disturbance in the country to lay violent hands on the venerable Archbishop Narses, who was dragged first to St. Petersburg and afterward banished to Bessarabia, whilst several of the Armenian chiefs were scattered in exile through foreign countries, or carried off to Russia, to be heard of no more.”[68]

Russia also wrested from the degenerate Turkish Empire at times, especially in 1878, a large territory and the important city of Kars of Armenia, and now the Russian armies are occupying almost all of Armenia, and it is hoped that not a foot of ground in Armenia will be returned to the “unspeakable Turk.”

FOOTNOTES:

[62] Milner, “The Turkish Empire,” pp. 6-7.

[63] Milner, “The Turkish Empire,” pp. 18-20.

[64] Milner, “Turkish Empire,” p. 33.

[65] Happily, Luther did not live in the days of William II of Germany.

[66] In his campaign against Syria and Egypt, Selim captured Cairo, deposed the last Caliph Al-mutawakkel. Selim was invested with the dignity by the sheriff of Mecca, who consigned the keys of Kaaba to his custody. He added the title of defender of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. His successors have since been regarded as the supreme chiefs of the orthodox Moslem world. Milner, “Turkish Empire,” p. 105.

[67] Milner, “The Turkish Empire,” pp. 135, 138.

[68] Ubicini, “Letters on Turkey,” Vol. II, p. 340.

VIII

A GENERAL SURVEY

From the foregoing history it will easily be understood that the Armenians have been subjected to all kinds of cruelties. Owing to calamitous wars, merciless persecutions, voluntary and involuntary exiles, and emigrations into different countries, they have been justly compared to the Jews. Like them scattered all over the globe the Armenians are met with in every commercial city throughout Europe and Asia. However, until the beginning of 1915 the great majority of them still dwelled in the land of Ararat in the Turkish empire. There were over two hundred thousand Armenians in the city of Constantinople, and as many in other European countries. The number of the Armenians in Turkish Armenia and in Asia Minor was not considered to be below two millions and a half.[69]

The Armenians lived (before this world war) in their respective villages, towns and cities. If a town, or village is not exclusively occupied by the Armenians, then they had their own district clustered by themselves with sufficient churches and schools for their religious and educational needs. The dwellings in the villages and towns are of primitive style in the interior being built either of unhewn stone entirely, or half of stone and half of sun-dried bricks. The roofs are flat. Large logs or beams are laid crosswise, supported by strong pillars. These are covered with planks and earth to a thickness of two or three feet, and then hardened to prevent leaking. But in spite of all sometimes “through idleness of lands, the house droppeth through.”[70]

Some of these villages are built on the hillsides, and the roofs of the lower row of houses are on the level with the streets above, or with the yards of the houses above. Some travelers, careless in their observations or basing their statements on the information of others, betray incorrectness in their assertions in regard to them when they say that “the inhabitants are literally dwelling under ground.”

The villagers and some dwellers in towns were and are (what is left of them in Asia Minor) exclusively engaged in agricultural pursuits and the raising and tending of cattle and sheep, their land and fold, being within a distance of several miles from the villages and towns. The farmers go to their fields of labor in the morning early and return in the evening to their homes. They could not do like the farmers in this country, live on or near their farms on account of insecurity of life and property. The Turkish government had determined for years to expose the Armenians to all manner of oppressions, thefts, plunders and murders perpetrated by the Circassians, Kurds and Turks, especially the former two, who have been human parasites on the Christian inhabitants of Turkey.

In Armenia many families formerly could be found (still some may be found) living in a patriarchal style like the families of Abraham, Job and Jacob, who could raise a force and chase the invaders from their borders; the younger sons and grandsons with the hired servants tending the flocks and following the herds like Jesse’s younger son, and not a few of them had the fate that Job’s servants had.

Many Armenian youths have been like Jesse’s youngest son, leading the sheep on the lonely hills of Armenia. Yet none finds the life of an Oriental shepherd an easy and pleasant one, not only because it is exposed to dangerous conflicts with robbers, thieves, wild beasts and ravenous wolves, but also the irksome anxiety to find green pastures and still waters to lead the flocks thereto. Added to this is the feeling of loneliness day and night and compulsive association with the mute creature whom they call by their names. Some shepherds again, like David, have a source of comfort, not the harp, but their flutes, and the sheep seem to delight to listen to those pensive melodies, when the shepherds play, while the shepherd-dogs with their accredited faithfulness, always follow the flocks.

The farming implements are also in primitive simplicity, like the mode of cultivation. The western plows, planters, sowers, cultivators, reapers, and self-binders and threshing machines are comparatively unknown in most of the places in the Turkish Armenia. The employment of oxen and tamed buffaloes, instead of horses in some hilly and rocky districts, for hauling and farming might be justifiable, but in many places and for many many purposes on the farm the horses could be used with advantage. They are not, however, except for riding and traveling.

It is due to the inexhaustive fertility of the land and to the industry of the people, and not to the modern improvements or advantageous circumstances, that the inhabitants of Armenia have not starved long ago. If we, moreover, remember the absence of railroads and good roads, the difficulty of transportation of the products into the market, the dangers from the highway robbers encountered in traveling which paralyze the spirit of enterprise and energy of the farmer, we well may be surprised to know that they not only make a living, but that thousands of bushels of grain were annually exported into the European countries.

In every village, town and city of Armenia and in Asia Minor where there were and are Armenians, churches and schools are found, one, two, or more of them according to the numbers of the Armenian inhabitants. Some of these villages and towns are wholly inhabited by the Mohammedans who have seized the property of the Christians and have also converted their churches into mosques and their schools into _tekes_ (schools).

Many of the churches are of great antiquity, but some only a few centuries old. They are invariably of substantial characters. One of the peculiarities of the older churches is that their entrances or doors are quite small and low. The reason of this was and still is in the interior to prevent the enemies of their religion from desecrating the sacred edifices by putting their horses into the churches and converting them into stables, as the greatest insult to Christianity and a single triumph of Mohammedanism. Sultan Bajazet himself boasted he “would one day feed his horse at Rome with a bushel of oats on the altar of St. Peter’s.” What Bajazet and others of his type and character boasted that they would do in Europe, so both long before and after him, others have done it in Armenia and elsewhere; and even worse, as the following verse, composed by our immortal “prince of poets.” Nerses Shnorhali (graceful or gracious), who lived in the twelfth century:

“Close by the altar in the sacred fane, Where daily God’s own paschal lamb was slain, Hadji, the impious, made vile harlots sing, And drunken broils throughout the temple ring.”

The Armenians, living in large towns and cities, were and are engaged in various occupations. The following trades were almost exclusively in the hands of the Armenians in Asiatic and partly in European Turkey: Blacksmithing, goldsmithing, coppersmithing, locksmithing, watchmaking, shoemaking, tailoring, weaving, printing, dyeing, carpentry, masonry, architecture, etc. Some are storekeepers of all sorts. Others are merchants and traveling merchants, money-brokers, bankers, lawyers and physicians. “The Armenian nation,” says a writer, “is the life of Turkey.” But the Turks have been committing suicide by attempting to annihilate the Armenians in the Empire. Another says, “They are a noble race and have been called ‘the Anglo-Saxons of the East.’ They are an

## active and enterprising class. Shrewd, industrious and persevering,

they are the bankers of Constantinople, the artisans of Turkey, and the merchants of Western and Central Asia.”

One of the first missionaries of the American Board, the Rev. Dr. H. G. O. Dwight, says: “The principal merchants are Armenians, and so are nearly all the great bankers of the Turkish government; and whatever arts there are that require peculiar ingenuity and skill, are almost sure to be in the hands of Armenians.”

“In these Armenian provinces of Russia the machinery of administration is conducted by a handful of Russian officials through Armenians, who are employed even in the higher grades. The Armenian is a man of ancient culture and high national capacity; neither the instinct nor the quality would be claimed by his Russian superior.... Moreover, the Russian official gives the impression of being overwhelmed by his system, like a child to whom his lessons are new, and when you see him at work among such a people as the Armenians, you ask yourself how it has happened that a race with all the aptitudes are governed by such wooden figures.”[71]

One more quotation from another Englishman, which will be an exception from the other testimonies, yet the exception proves the rule: “As a people (the Armenians) there are few who have a good word for them. They are said to be cowardly and treacherous, to be mere money grubbers, and so on _ad nauseum_. The charges vary; but all agree that the objects of them are objectionable somehow. They seem, in fact, to be a sort of ‘Dr. Fell’ of nationalities for every one dislikes them, though often enough they cannot tell the reason. Even the writer, who has not the least objection to thieves, murderers, and devil-worshipers, who has kindly feeling for a successful cheat, admits to getting on less well with Armenians than with other Orientals.”[72] Surely does the exception prove the rule. Every Armenian ought to be thankful that he is not a thief, he is not a murderer, he is not a devil-worshiper or even a successful cheat, so as to merit this Rev. Dr. Wigram’s approval. However, there are some things that man cannot deny; so this writer is compelled to say, “And yet there is much about them that anyone must admire.... In the massacres of 1895, armed men were butchering unarmed, and there was no test of anything but passive endurance. Yet how many could have saved their lives by a mere verbal acceptance (of Mohammedanism)?” But they did not.

In the days of old the Armenians were also noted as merchants and traders in Western Asia. Herodotus, the great historian who lived in the fifth century before Christ, tells us that next to the marvelous city Babylon were the boats constructed in Armenia by the Armenian merchants in the following manner:

“But the greatest wonder of all that I saw in the land, after the city itself, I will now proceed to mention. The boats which came down the river (Euphrates) to Babylon are circular and made of skin. The frames which are of willow, are cut in the country of the Armenians above Assyria and on these, which serve for hulls, a covering of skin is stretched outside and thus the boats are made, without either stem or stern, quite round like a shield. They are then entirely filled with straw, and their cargo is put on the board, after which they are suffered to float down the stream. Their chief freight is wine, stored in casks made of the wood of the palmtrees.

“They are managed by two men, who stand upright in them, each plying an oar, one pulling and the other pushing. The boats are of various sizes, some larger, some smaller; the biggest reach as high as five thousand talents burthen. Each vessel has a live ass on board; those of larger size have more than one. When they reach Babylon the cargo is landed and offered for sale, after which the men break up their boats, sell the straw and frames, and, loading their asses with the skins, set off on their way back to Armenia. The current is too strong to allow a boat to return upstream, for which reason they make their boats of skin rather than wood. On their return to Armenia they build fresh boats for the next voyage.”[73]

The prophet Ezekiel, more than a hundred and fifty years before the time of Herodotus, in his enumeration of the ancient merchant nations who were engaged in mercantile pursuits with the Phœnicians in the markets of Tyre, speaks of the Armenians under the popular appellation of “the house of Togarmah.” “They of the house of Togarmah traded in thy fairs with horses and horsemen and mules.”[74]

The descendants of Togarmah, on account of their ingenuity and intelligence, have accumulated great wealth, and demanded, by fitness, from the indolent Turk, many high trusts in the government and its affairs, but by the jealousy, cruelty, and cupidity of the latter many of them have been precipitated from their elevated state and prosperity into terrible misery, often ending in execution.

“The most remarkable circumstance is that these Armenians who have undergone execution have the modes of their death commemorated on their sepulchres by the effigies of men being hung, strangled or beheaded. In explanation it is stated that having become wealthy by their industry, they suffered as victims to the cupidity of former governments, not as criminals; and hence their ignominious death was really honorable to them and worthy of a memorial. An inscription on one of the tombs of this class is as follows:

“You see my place of burial here in this verdant field, I give my goods to the robber, My soul to the regions of death; The world I leave to God, And my blood I shed in the Holy Spirit. You who meet my tomb, Say for me ‘Lord, I have sinned.’ 1197.”[75]

Sultan Mohammed II after he made Constantinople his capital appointed Bishop Onaghim, of Brousa, patriarch over the Armenians in his dominions in 1461, as the head of his people with certain privileges. This custom of appointing the patriarchs by the Sultans continued for a long time. But it did not prove to be the popular way, on account of abuses of procuring the offices, and unqualified persons often obtaining the appointment by the influence of their friends. The nation, therefore, obtained the right from the Porte to choose her own patriarch by suffrage. The appointment, however, had to be ratified by the Sultan of Turkey.

Some prominent Armenians drew up a Constitution in 1860 and presented it to the Turkish government for approval. The Porte approved it with a few changes. The following is the introduction of the Constitution:

“The privileges granted by the Ottoman Empire to its non-Mohammedan subjects are in their principles equal for all, but the mode of their execution varies according to the requirements of the particular customs of each nationality.

“The Armenian patriarch is the head of his nation, and in particular circumstances the medium of execution of the orders of the government. There is, however, in the patriarchate a Religious Assembly for

## particular affairs. In case of necessity these two unite and form the

mixed Assembly. Both the patriarch and members of these Assemblies are elected in a general Assembly composed of honorable men of the nation.

“As the office and duties of the above Assemblies and the mode of their formation are not defined by sufficient rules, for this reason different inconveniences and special difficulties in the formation of the general Assembly has been noticed.

“As each community is bound according to the new Imperial Edict (Hatti Humayan 6-18 of Feb., 1856) to examine within a given time its rights and privileges and after due deliberation to present to the sublime Porte the reforms required by the present state of things and progress of civilization of our times.

“As it is necessary to harmonize the authority and power to the religions of each nationality with the new condition and system secured to each community.

“A committee of some honorable persons of the nation was organized, which committee prepared the following Constitution.”

The General Assembly is the principal body of the national representative administration, which is composed of one hundred forty members, twenty of these are clergymen, elected from Constantinople, forty are representatives elected from provinces, and eighty are representatives from the districts of the capital. This assembly is elected for ten years, but one-fifth of its membership is changed by election every two years. Thus the whole Assembly is changed every ten years. The General Assembly assumes the entire responsibility of the national affairs; the patriarch is the presiding officer. There are two other assemblies or councils: Ecclesiastical or religious and political or civil. The former consists of fourteen clergymen, the latter is composed of twenty lay members. The members of these councils are also elected from the General Assembly for two years.

The ecclesiastical council has its sphere of action in religious matters and is the highest religious authority in the Turkish empire. The political or civil council is the civil authority, and has four sub-councils or committees under its supervision through which to operate, namely, council of Revenues, council of Expenditures, Judicatory Council and Educational Council (or the committee on Education). These names indicate the sphere of their activities or duties.

This mode of operation or division of the work is carried out into the provinces wherever Armenians are found. The Bishops or their substitutes are the presidents of these provincial councils. And all the councils and sub-councils in the provinces and in the districts of Constantinople are amenable to the General Assembly, and the Assembly and the Patriarch to the Porte.[76]

Oppressions, resulting from wars, political and religious, persecutions, the division of the country among different powers, and the desire of the people to better themselves have caused the people to scatter from their paternal homes all over the world. An early company of emigrants entered India via Persia. After the appearance of the East India Company, the Armenians rendered the Company very important services, acting as interpreters. Thus they also received special privileges as traders and became very wealthy. In every important city they have their churches and schools and printing press. They have been also liberal in giving large sums for the education of the poor and orphan Armenian children.

The Armenians in Persia, or under the Persian rule, are not in a very desirable condition, from a religious and educational point of view. Especially those living in Western Persia, or Pers-Armenia, are subject to all sorts of cruelties at the hands of the Kurds, with whom they unfortunately neighbor. But the presence of the Russian armies who occupy these regions may be the end of oppression in the East.

Russia having in the last century wrested from Persia and Turkey a large portion of Armenia, there are over a million of Armenians in the Armenian provinces of Russia, besides those who reside in the commercial cities of the same empire. Their financial and intellectual condition is far better than that of those living in Persia, or in the interior of the Turkish provinces of Armenia. Now that the entire Armenia is occupied by the Russian forces, the prospect is that probably the dawn of the liberty of the long oppressed Armenians is at hand. Russia of this century is different from the Russia of the past. She will be liberty-loving, the good company that she is in will guide her to heal the wounds made in the past, and make those who have served her faithfully, both in the past and at the present, acknowledge her as their liberator.

A proximate estimate of the number of Armenians in different countries in the world may be given as follows: Two millions in the Turkish empire, before the war; one million and three hundred thousand in Russian Armenia and in the same empire; one hundred and fifty thousand in Persia and in other eastern countries; one hundred thousand in European countries and a hundred thousand in America; total three million and six hundred fifty thousand.

The Armenians belong to the branch of the human family which is commonly called the Aryan Race. The nations of Aryan stock extend from Hindustan or India to Europe, for this reason it is also called Indo-European or Indo-Germanic. This Aryan race is geographically divided into two branches, the eastern and the western. The western branch comprehends the inhabitants of Europe with the exception of the Turks and others of Mongolian origin. The eastern branch comprehends the Armenians, the Persians, the ancient Medes and Afghans and the inhabitants of Northern Hindustan.

The studies of anthropology, philology, psychology and sociology have confirmed the original unity of these nations. The Armenian language also, therefore, belongs to the Indo-European family (the occidental branch) of languages. This is proved not only by numerous words with the identical sense in this family of languages, but also by the very construction of the language itself. “In any case it is clear that many of the oldest forms which the Armenian shared with other Indo-Germanic dialects were lost and replaced by forms of which the origin is obscure.... The attempt made by S. Bugge to assimilate Old Armenia (language) to Etruscan, and by P. Jesen to explain from it the Hittite inscriptions, appear to be fanciful.”[77]

There are, however, two Armenian languages, the ancient and the modern; the former was the language of the pre-Christian era, and after the conversion of the nation, and the translation of the Bible into the same, it became the standard language of literature. “In its syntactical structure the Old Armenian resembles most nearly the classical Greek.” The modern Armenian is not a distinct language, but it is simplified and adapted to the present use of the most of the people. Within little more than a century it has become a very rich language by numerous original and translated works, by periodicals and papers published in various centers of learning, and especially by the translation of the Bible. The relations of the modern to the ancient Armenian might well be compared with that of the modern Greek to ancient Greek language.

The Armenian literature of the pre-Christian era has not survived, excepting a few fragmentary songs, which lingered until the time of Moses of Khorene, in whose history of Armenia they are preserved; and the inscriptions of Van, which some claim as “the oldest specimens of the Asiatic branch of the Indo-Germanic family.”

Christianity brought with it into Armenia a great love for learning. After the conversion of the nation, Armenian youths flocked into the schools of Alexandria, Constantinople and Athens. Most of them engaged in translating valuable works from the Greek and other languages into the Armenian. A writer speaks of these translators in this manner: “Some of them attained celebrity in this chosen pursuit. To this tendency we owe the preservation, in Armenian, of many works that have perished in their original languages.” “Hundreds of other translations from Syriac and Greek writers soon followed (the translations of the Bible), some of which are extant only in Armenian.”

The original works consist of theological and expository discourses, commentaries, histories, sacred songs, devotional works, etc. “The existing literature of the Armenians dates from the fourth century and is essentially and exclusively Christian.” This “literature is rich and continuous, uninterrupted through all the middle ages. It has furnished the philosophers, historians, theologians, and poets.” The catalogue of the works in the library of Etchmiadsin contains about 5000 titles.

“They (the Armenians) are a people of fine physical development, often of high stature and powerful frame, industrious and peaceable, yet more jealous of their rights and liberties than any other Oriental race. They passionately cherish the memory of their fathers, and preserve the use of their national language, which belongs to the Indo-European family, and possess a _literature of considerable importance_.”[78]

“These Armenians are a superb race of men ...; their physiognomy is intelligent. They are the Swiss of the East. Industrious, peaceable, regular in their habits, they resemble them also in calculation and love of gain. The women are lovely; their features are pure and delicate, and their serene expression recalls the beauty of the women of the British Islands or the peasants of Switzerland.”[79]

“By nature the Armenians are deeply religious, as their _whole literature and history_ show. It has been a religion of the heart, not of the head. Its evidence is not to be found in metaphysical discussions and hair-splitting theology, as in the case of the Greek, but in a brave and simple record written with the tears of saints and illuminated with the blood of martyrs.”[80]

There is no nation in the world which has suffered as much persecution, oppression, injustice and martyrdom as the Armenians, yet there is not a nation, even with less advantages, that can compare with them in education. They are like the Jews also in this respect that wherever there is a sufficient number, they have a church and close by is a school. There is less illiteracy among the Armenians than among some Roman Catholic countries.

Since the coming of the Catholic and Protestant missionaries a new impetus has been imparted to the Armenians in the line of education. Mukhetar of Sebaste, an Armenian monk, established an order of the Catholic monks at the convent of St. Lazarus in Venice (1717), which became a great center of learning. The monks of this order and monastery have rendered great service for the education of the Armenians in general, and the Catholic Armenians in particular. “These fathers have won the interest and admiration of European scholars by their publication of Armenian classics, together with many learned original contributions.”[81]

The Armenian youths also, like in the olden times, flocked into other centers of learning both in Europe and America. Roberts’ College, in Constantinople, had the largest number of Armenian students from its beginning (1860). The native schools, in every town and city in the provinces, were also very much improved; moreover, the Protestant mission schools of all grades were also freely patronized by many.[82] The Christian civilization and education brought out the metal and character of the Armenians, and also created in the hearts of the Mohammedan rulers the rankest kind of hatred against the former. So they have decided to destroy both the Christian and Christianity in their native home. Mohammedanism is a moral and religious photophobia; it dreads the light of civilization and Christianity. So the ministers, priests and teachers are slaughtered; the churches and schools are burnt down by the followers of the false prophet.

A few samples of Armenian poems also might have been given but my determination not to write a large book restrains me. The following is a poem--one of many--written by Father Leo Alishan, a monk of the Mukhetarist order of the convent at Venice, translated by Alice Stone Blackwell:

WEEP NOT

(Jesus is Near)

Why art thou troubled, wandering heart? Why dost thou sigh with pain? From whom do all thy sufferings come? Of whom dost thou complain?

Is there no cure for wounds, no friend To lend a pitying ear? Why art thou troubled, wandering heart? Weep not! See Jesus near!

Sorrow and hardship are for all Though differing forms they wear. The path He gave us teems with thorns, The feet must suffer there.

What life, though but a day’s brief span, Is free from pain and woe? ’Tis not for mortals born in grief To live at ease below.

Not, for the transient joys of earth Thy heart to thee was given, But for an instrument of grief To raise thy life toward heaven.

If joys be few, if pains abound, If balms bring slow relief, If wounds be sore and nature weak, Thy earthly life is brief.

This is the vale of death and pain, Ordained for ancient sin, Except through anguish, Eden’s gate No soul shall enter in.

Justice ordained it; mercy then Made it more light to bear. Unasked by thee, Christ sweetened it, His love infusing there.

From heaven’s height He hastened down, Pitying thy trouble sore; With thee a servant He became Himself thy wounds he bore.

He filled His cup celestial Full of thy tears and pain, And tremblingly, yet freely, He dared the dregs to drain.

Remembering this, wilt thou not drink Thy cup of tears and care? ’Tis proffered by thy Saviour’s hand, His love is mingled there.

He feels and pities all thy woes, He wipes away each tear; Love He distils into thy griefs; Weep not, for He is near.

Blackwell, “Armenian Poems,” pp. 112-114.

FOOTNOTES:

[69] The total number of Armenians was estimated by some as follows: 2,900,000. In Turkey 1,500,000; in Russia 1,000,000; in Persia 150,000; in Europe, America, and East Indies 250,000. But this is quite a low estimate. (See p. 146.)

[70] Ecclesiastes 10:18. Prov. 19:13 and 27:15.

[71] Lynch, “Armenia, Travels and Studies,” Vol. I, p. 60.

[72] Wigram, “The Cradle of Mankind,” p. 237.

[73] Rawlinson, “Herodotus,” Book I, p. 194.

[74] Ezekiel 27:14.

[75] Milner, “The Turkish Empire,” p. 264. The date possibly is the Armenian which begins 551, and which brings up to A.D. 1748. About this time, two wealthy and influential Armenians, who were especially connected with the government, were beheaded, and four others, who also were holders of high places in the governmental affairs, were executed in 1817.

[76] The Turkish government promulgated a decree, on August 12, 1916, which revokes the Constitution of the Armenian community in Turkey, and creates an ecclesiastical head for the administration of religious matters with his seat in Jerusalem, thus abolishing the office of Armenian patriarch in Constantinople.

[77] Encyclopedia Britannica, the 11th ed., under the article, “The Armenian Language.”

[78] Van Lennep, “The Bible Lands,” p. 367.

[79] Lamartine, “Voyage en Orient,” Vol. II, p. 190.

[80] Greene, “The Armenian Crisis in Turkey,” p. 140.

[81] The Mukhitarists also have translated from the Greek, French and English classics. The writer read Milton’s “Paradise Lost” first in Armenian translated by the fathers of Mukhitar’s order.

[82] See