Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, With the Annual Message of the President, Transmitted to Congress December 2, 1895, Part II
Mr. Terrell to Mr. Olney.
Constantinople, December 3, 1895. (Received Dec. 23.)
Sir: I have the honor to inclose herewith copies of correspondence from Cesarea and Marsovan, descriptive of massacres and disturbances in Asia Minor, from missionary sources.
I have, etc.,
Mr. Dodd to Mr. Terrell.
Intelligence from the Armenian village of Gemerek, one of the large villages in the southwest of the province of Sivas but nearer to Cesarea than to Sivas, shows a deplorable state of things. Bands of Kurds, Circassians, etc., mounted and on foot, have ravaged the district, driving off all horses and cattle until all the live stock of the Armenian farmers has been taken from them. Seven villages near Gemerek have been sacked, and on the 17th, when the last news was sent, Gemerek itself was surrounded, and the Turks living in Gemerek were preparing to cooperate with the men coming from outside. The mudir of Gemerek bad fled. The-people sent to the kaimakam, 18 miles away, asking for protection. He sent back word, “Defend yourselves; there are no troops here.” The people are unarmed. They might for twenty-four hours beat off their assailants with sticks and stones, but what then! The Armenian bishop of Cesarea and the leading Protestant pastor went together to the moutessarif of Cesarea; but these villages are in the province of Sivas, and not under his jurisdiction, [and asked] that he should send to protect them. Besides, they are in one of the six provinces of the reform scheme, and others may not meddle in the arrangements made for the reform of those provinces.
The massacre at Marsovan.
The collection at Marsovan of a force of Redif troops said to number over 1,000, and the constant repetition of the stories of violence in other [Page 1362] cities, threw the whole population of Marsovan into a high state of excitement. The Turks were overbearing and threatening and the Christians paralyzed with fear. On Thursday, the 14th of November, the excitement culminated in a report that the Turks were declaring that they had received authorization to kill Christians for four hours on the next day (Friday, the 15th). Armenian merchants and others presented this story to the kaimakam and asked his advice about closing their shops and remaining at home on that day. The kaimakam assured them that they had nothing to fear, and that he would protect them. The next day they were butchered in their shops, and the entire stock of their goods looted, as well as those of many others who escaped. One of the American missionaries writes as follows:
It should be stated that the public officers here have borne themselves creditably. The kaimakam has repeatedly expressed himself as shocked at the deeds of violence elsewhere, and has declared that such things can not be allowed here. The colonel in command of the troops here has always been very kind to us. So far as I am aware, the Armenian revolutionists have refrained from any acts of folly which might bring on an outbreak. They seem to be thoroughly frightened. Bekir Pasha, the moutessarif of Amasia, recently called the leading men among the Turks and gave them some very plain talk about behaving themselves and doing nothing to foment disturbance of any kind. He gave a similar lecture to the Armenians, enforcing his remarks in each case with sharp threats of holding individuals responsible for all overt acts.
Nevertheless, the storm burst on Marsovan Friday, the 15th. At noon, while the Turks were in the mosques, an alarm was raised that one of the mosques had been attacked by Armenians (but no one can point out which mosque it was). At once a multitude of Turks rushed to their houses, seized their arms, and made an onslaught upon the market. There they seem to have slaughtered right and left as many Armenians as they came across. Others attacked and looted private houses. This bloody work began very near to our premises. On the east and south we could hear a storm of yells and shrieks, mingled with pistol and musket shots and fierce battering on doors. Especially on the side nearest to the girls’ boarding school pandemonium reigned until it had spent itself there, and surged on to richer fields near the markets. Bullets came humming over and struck the girls’ school building. Finally the sounds grew fainter and the firing more distant. We had two Circassians on the premises; one our permanent night watchman (furnished by Bekir Pasha), and the other was a cavass of the consulate at Sivas, who chanced to be here on his way back from Samsoun. They have done us good service. We sent them to communicate with the kaimakam, who they found patroling the city and putting a check to the bloodshed. He told them that he had already sent soldiers to surround our premises and to prevent any evil being done here. These soldiers were soon observed in squads outside of our walls, and while this increased the perturbation of some, no raid upon our grounds was allowed. Toward night the kaimakam himself came to see us, and brought a guard of 25 men under a lieutenant, who remained upon the premises on guard all night. The next morning the colonel in command came himself with a similar number of men to relieve guard. Their assurances are very fair. God grant that they may remain faithful, and that this mass of helpless boys and girls may be spared. When the hurricane burst upon the city we allowed the pupils of the two schools to abandon the school buildings and to huddle together in our houses, where they remained all the afternoon. Aside from fear of what might happen on our own premises, the feeling of helplessness to do anything to check such horrid work was most distressing. One poor woman lay in the street where she was struck down from noon to night, just a few yards from a little postern gate of our grounds, which was locked and nailed up, and we could see her through the cracks in the gate, but we could not get at her, nor could we do anything to aid her.
All the Armenian shops in the market of Marsovan are said to have been pillaged upon the outbreak. A number of people in the market rushed into Tash Han, a large stone building, the most secure in the market. There they shut themselves up to stand a siege. The Han was afterwards surrounded with soldiers and so protected from attack. So far as can be learned, the Turkish troops had no share in the massacre, but have been, rather tardily, the means of its being checked.
Many villagers from neighboring Turkish villages flocked into the city to have a share in the plunder, Those who came in on Friday were [Page 1363] in time to have a share in the business, but those who came in on Saturday were turned back by the hundred by the troops who formed a cordon around the city. Great numbers of Turkish women came in among these people from the villages, and they were greatly disappointed not to be able to see the sport.
On Saturday, the day after the massacre, there was a ghastly spectacle in the bottom of the valley in the edge of the Armenian cemetery outside of Marsovan. Corpses were brought out by the wagonload and tossed on the ground in disordered heaps. Aside from such rifling of the bodies as was done by the perpetrators of the slaughter, a horde pounced upon the dead, after they had been cast out like offal upon the ground, and stripped the dishonored carcasses of what poor and bloody clothing they had upon them, leaving them in all degrees of nudity. Finally, about noon, a score of Armenians, with an Armenian priest, were sent out protected by a strong guard of soldiers, and buried this mass of humanity. Eighty-three bodies were laid in one long trench, and left for the witness of the resurrection day. Besides these, others were buried individually by their friends. The number killed is probably about 100.