Chapter I

.)--the Ur of Chaldea, where the patriarch Abraham was born.

It was one of the great heathen cities to which the disciples went immediately after Pentecost and where they were most gladly received. In this city, on October 27th, 1895, began an awful slaughter, which continued for two days. When the massacre was yet proceeding, a Muezzin ascended to the steeple of the Armenian church and began to call the faithful to prayer. During the two days' disturbance three thousand Christians were slaughtered by a single Hamidieh regiment and a force of Bedouins and all their property was either looted or destroyed. Among other horrors, one hundred and fifty wounded Armenians were thrown down a well and petroleum having been poured over them the whole mass of human beings were set on fire and perished in most awful agony.

For two months, the Christian population of Oorfa experienced all the vicissitudes of a veritable "Reign of Terror." During all this time the Christians ventured beyond the precincts of their own homes only at the risk of their lives. Nor were they secure even in their homes. For six or seven weeks the soldiers of the government went from house to house almost daily, and after forcing an entrance, offered the inmates the option of becoming Moslems, or being killed on the spot.

When the general onslaught began on December 29th, the Christians sought the refuge of their churches and every other possible place which they hoped might shelter them from the fury of their fiendish assailants. Many took refuge in wells, some under manure heaps, while others had their friends cover them under piles of charcoal. For some of these their shelters proved to be a living grave. Two hundred and forty-six persons took refuge in the home of the American Missionary, Miss Shattuck.

During the six weeks immediately following the first massacre, this devoted missionary heroine was obliged to keep all but constant vigil, and was unable through all this time to undress even once, and retire to her room for a night's rest. Any rest or sleep obtained was on a lounge and for but short intervals, while others kept watch.

This church was built entirely of stone and may be said to be absolutely fire-proof. It was to this edifice from fifteen hundred to two thousand of the people fled when the general massacre began, and the story of what took place within its walls on that awful day will never be fully known. These nearly two thousand victims were at the mercy of the merciless soldiers and the worse than merciless mob. The soldiers were first to enter, but they soon allowed the promiscuous rabble to follow and share with them in the carnival of debauchery and blood. The fiendish fanaticism of these Moslems had its climax in setting fire to the victims of their wild fury. There being no wood finishing on the inside of the church, and little or no inflammable furnishings, one can only conjecture how they succeeded in transforming this multitude of human sacrifices into the great mass of bones and ashes to which they were all reduced by the following morning. For two or three days afterward a number of hammals (Turkish porters), were engaged in carrying the bones and charred remains of these victims from the church to a place close in the rear of the American mission premises, where they were dumped over a portion of the old wall of the city.

Apart altogether from those killed and burned in the church, the bodies of over one thousand five hundred by actual count were dragged, usually by the legs, and in considerable numbers at a time, by animals, to a large trench dug for the purpose on the outskirts of the city. There they lie in one, irregular mass, awaiting the day when all wrongs shall be righted.

As many as three hundred bodies were taken from one of the large cistern wells some days after the massacre, while another furnished over fifty and yet another about thirty. Scarcely a single Gregorian or Protestant home escaped the general pillage and bloodshed and the total number of victims in this last massacre in Oorfa must now be put down at four thousand.

Read this farewell which seemed to come out from the tombs of the dead:

Some days before the massacre at Oorfa the Armenians were warned that it was impending, but the officials prevented them from leaving the town. During the suspense the Gregorian clergy compiled a letter which they sent secretly to Aintab, whence it was forwarded to Europe. The Arch Priest Stephen and four other priests were subsequently slain before the altar while celebrating the Eucharist. The letter contained messages to the Sultan and to the Gregorian's Moslem fellow-countrymen, and reproached their European brethren for standing by, watching the bloody work. It also contained the following:

"To the Christians of the United States of America we say farewell. We have been strenuously opposed to your mission work among us, but these bloody days have shown that some of our Protestant brethren have been staunch defenders of our honor and our faith. You, at least, know that our crime, in the eyes of the Turk, has been that we adopted the civilization you commended to us. Behold now the missions and schools which you planted among us, at the cost of many millions of dollars and hundreds of precious lives! They are in ruins, and the Turk is planning to rid himself of the missionaries and teachers by leaving them nobody among whom to labor."

Zeitoun has the glory of being the only town that successfully resisted the Turkish troops and secured for itself an honorable capitulation.

Peace having been secured through the Consuls of the various Powers, it was believed that the terms of the amnesty granted by the Porte would honestly be fulfilled.

It would not have been a very easy thing to hush up another massacre, and if one had occurred it might at last have aroused the Powers that (ought to) be to some decisive action.

The town of Zeitoun lies several hours' journey over the mountains, to the north of Marash. Secluded in a deep valley, it is well protected on all four of the roads leading into it and could be defended against very great odds if there were a small force at each narrow pass.

The Zeitounlis had early determined to make a stand for their lives and had succeeded in capturing the barracks, which are situated just at the edge of the town, after an attack of sixty hours and taking prisoners nearly six hundred Turkish soldiers, and then they proceeded to garrison and provision the town for a siege.

In one of the battles which took place at Hot Springs, some five miles east of the city, the Zeitounlis made a stand at a stone bridge which there spans a rushing torrent. But after holding it bravely for awhile they slowly retreated up a steep hill until almost the entire Turkish army had crossed the bridge, when suddenly the bridge was blown up and the Zeitounlis turning, hurled down from the hills above great rocks and poured upon them a most destructive fire. Hemmed in as they were the loss was very great. The Turkish account was that fire burst out from the air or from the ground and destroyed the army. Seven distinct attacks were made in which the losses as sent through official sources to the Porte were placed at ten thousand men.

On February 9th, 1896, the Porte communicated to the embassies of the Powers its reply to the proposals of the Zeitounlis for conditions of surrender. The Porte promised a satisfactory settlement, and on the 13th the terms were announced. Terrible distress and illness prevailed in the city as the consequence of the siege. Thousands died of cold and starvation.

How the Turk began on the first day of 1896 to keep the oft repeated promises made to the Powers of Europe, was best told in the following account of the massacre at Birijik (province of Aleppo).

"The assault on the Christian houses commenced at about nine o'clock in the morning, and continued until nightfall. The soldiers were aided by the Moslems of the city in the terrible work. The object at first seemed to be mainly plunder, but, after the plunder had been secured, the soldiers seemed to make a systematic search for men, to kill those who were unwilling to accept Mohammedanism. The cruelty used to force men to become Moslems was terrible. In one case the soldiers found some twenty people, men, women and children, who had taken refuge in a sort of cave. They dragged them out, and killed all the men and boys because they would not become Moslems.

"After cutting down one old man who had thus refused they put live coals upon his body, and, as he was writhing in torture, they held a Bible before him and asked him mockingly to read them some of the promises in which he had trusted. Others were thrown into the river while still alive, after having been cruelly wounded. The wounded and children of this party were loaded up like goods upon the backs of porters and carried off to the houses of Mussulmans.

"Christian girls were eagerly sought after, and much quarreling occurred over the question of their division among their captors. Every Christian house, except two claimed to be owned by Turks, was plundered. Ninety-six men were killed, or about half of the adult Christian men. The others became Mussulmans to save their lives, so that there was not a single Christian left in Birijik. The Armenian Church was made into a mosque and the Protestant Church into a Medresse Seminary."

Massacres went on actively in Armenia for over sixteen months, dating from the terrible slaughter at Sassoun in August and September, 1894. A low estimate of those either killed, or in a state of actual starvation, was half the agricultural population of seven vilayets--two hundred and seventy-five thousand, according to Turkish statistics, two-thirds of the starving being women and children. The government completed its work in the vilayets by reducing the population and the remaining property under the forms of martial law, and by forcing the Armenians to declare themselves Mohammedans. Many died for their faith, but the greater number still held out, dying by inches.

Turkish estimates, which, as can be readily understood, did not magnify the massacres, gave the following as the net result of the sanguinary work up to the middle of December:

Armenian population in larger towns 177,700 Armenian population in villages 538,500 Number killed in towns (estimated) 20,000 Number of Armenian villages (about) 3,300 Villages destroyed 2,500 Number killed in villages, no data, but probably, 60,000 Number reduced to starvation in towns 75,000 Number reduced to starvation in villages 366,600

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