It was some time before the story of the Armenian atrocities reachedthe American Embassy in all its horrible details. In January and Februaryfragmentary reports began to filter in, but the tendency was at first toregard them as mere manifestations of the disorders that had prevailed inthe Armenian provinces for many years. When the reports came from Urumia,both Enver and Talaat dismissed them as wild exaggerations, and when, forthe first time, we heard of the disturbances at Van, these Turkish officialsdeclared that they were nothing more than a mob uprising which they wouldsoon have under control. I now see what was not apparent in those earlymonths, that the Turkish Government was determined to keep the news, aslong as possible, from the outside world. It was clearly the intention thatEurope and America should hear of the annihilation of the Armenian raceonly after that annihilation had been accomplished. As the country whichthe Turks particularly wished to keep in ignorance was the United States,they resorted to the most shameless prevarications when discussing the situationwith myself and with my staff.
In early April the authorities arrested about two hundred Armenians inConstantinople and sent them into the interior. Many of those who were thendeported were educational and social leaders and men who were prominentin industry and in finance. I knew many of these men and therefore felta personal interest in their misfortunes. But when I spoke to Talaat abouttheir expulsion, he replied that the Government was acting in self-defense.The Armenians at Van, he said, had already shown their abilities as revolutionists;he knew that these leaders in Constantinople were corresponding with theRussians and he had every reason to fear that they would start an insurrectionagainst the Central Government. The safest plan, therefore, was to sendthem to Angora and other interior towns. Talaat denied that this was partof any general concerted scheme to rid the city of its Armenian population,and insisted that the Armenian masses in Constantinople would not be disturbed.
But soon the accounts from the interior became morespecific and more disquieting. The withdrawal of the Allied fleet from theDardanelles produced a distinct change in the atmosphere. Until then therewere numerous indications that all was not going well in the Armenian provinces;when it at last became definitely established, however, that the traditionalfriends of Armenia, Great Britain, France, and Russia, could do nothingto help that suffering people, the mask began to disappear. In April I wassuddenly deprived of the privilege of using the cipher for communicatingwith American consuls. The most rigorous censorship also was applied toletters. Such measures could mean only that things were happening in AsiaMinor which the authorities were determined to conceal. But they did notsucceed. Though all sorts of impediments were placed to travelling, certainAmericans, chiefly missionaries, succeeded in getting through.
For hours they would sit in my office and, with tears streaming downtheir faces, they would tell me of the horrors through which they had passed.Many of these, both men and women, were almost broken in health from thescenes which they had witnessed. In many cases they brought me letters fromAmerican consuls, confirming the most dreadful of their narrations and addingmany unprintable details. The general purport of all these first-hand reportswas that the utter depravity and fiendishness of the Turkish nature, alreadysufficiently celebrated through the centuries, had now surpassed themselves.There was only one hope of saving nearly 2,000,000 people from massacre,starvation, and even worse, I was told---that was the moral power of the.United States. These spokesmen of a condemned nation declared that, unlessthe American Ambassador could persuade the Turk to stay his destroying arm,the whole Armenian nation would disappear. It was not only American andCanadian missionaries who made this personal appeal. Several of their Germanassociates begged me to intercede. These men and women confirmed all theworst things which I had heard, and they were unsparing in denouncing theirown fatherland. They did not conceal the humiliation which they felt, asGermans, in the fact that their own nation was allied with a people thatcould perpetrate such infamies, but they understood German policy well enoughto know that Germany would not intercede. There was no use in expectingaid from the Kaiser, they said-America must stop the massacres, or theywould go on.
Technically, of course, I had no right to interfere. According to thecold-blooded legalities of the situation, the treatment of Turkish subjectsby the Turkish Government was purely a domestic affair; unless it directlyaffected American lives and American interests, it was outside the concernof the American Government. When I first approached Talaat on the subject,he called my attention to this fact in no uncertain terms. This interviewwas one of the most exciting which I had had up to that time. Two missionarieshad just called upon me, giving the full details of the frightful happeningsat Konia. After listening to their stories, I could not restrain myself,and went immediately to the Sublime Porte. I saw at once that Talaat wasin one of his most ferocious states of mind. For months he had been attemptingto secure the release of one of his closest friends, Ayoub Sabri, and Zinnoun,who were held as prisoners by the English at Malta. His failure in thismatter was a constant grievance and irritation; he was always talking aboutit, always making new suggestions for getting his friends back to Turkey,and always appealing to me for help. So furious did the Turkish Boss becomewhen thinking about his absent friends that we usually referred to thesemanifestations as Talaat in his "Ayoub Sabri moods," This particularmorning the Minister of the Interior was in one of his worst "AyoubSabri moods." Once more he had been working for the release of theexiles and once more he had failed. As usual, he attempted to preserve outercalm and courtesy to me, but his short, snappy phrases, his bull-dog rigidity,and his wrists, planted on the table, showed that it was an unfavourablemoment to stir him to any sense of pity or remorse. I first spoke to himabout a Canadian missionary, Dr. McNaughton, who was receiving harsh treatmentin Asia Minor.
"The man is an English agent," he replied, "and we havethe evidence for it."
"Let me see it, " I asked.
"We'll do nothing for any Englishman or any Canadian," he replied,"until they release Ayoub and Zinnoun."
"But you promised to treat English in the employ of Americans asAmericans," I replied.
"That may be," rejoined the Minister, "but a promise isnot made to be kept forever. I withdraw that promise now. There is a timelimit on a promise."
"But if a promise is not binding, what is?" I asked.
"A guarantee," Talaat answered quickly.
This fine Turkish distinction had a certain metaphysical interest, butI had more practical matters to discuss at that time. So I began to talkabout the Armenians at Konia. I had hardly started when Talaat's attitudebecame even more belligerent. His eyes lighted up, he brought his jaws together,leaned over toward me, and snapped out:
"AretheyAmericans?"
The implications of this question were hardly diplomatic; it was merelya way of telling me that the matter was none of my business. In a momentTalaat said this in so many words.
"The Armenians are not to be trusted, " he said, "besides,what we do with them does not concern the United States."
I replied that I regarded myself as the friend of the Armenians and wasshocked at the way that they were being treated. But he shook his head andrefused to discuss the matter. I saw that nothing could be gained by forcingthe issue at that time. I spoke in behalf of another British subject whowas not being treated properly.
"He's English, isn't he?" answered Talaat. "Then I shalldo as I like with him!"
"Eat him, if you wish!" I replied.
"No," said Talaat, "he would go against my digestion."
He was altogether in a reckless mood."Gott strafe England!"he shouted-using one of the few German phrases that he knew. "Asto your Armenians, we don't give a rap for the future! We live only in thepresent! As to the English, I wish you would telegraph Washington that weshall not do a thing for them until they let out Ayoub Sabri and Zinnoun!"
Then leaning over, he struck a pose, pressed his hand to his heart, andsaid, in English---I think this must have been almost all the English heknew:
" Ayoub Sabri-he-my-brudder!"
Despite this I made another plea for Dr. McNaughton.
"He's not American," said Talaat, "he's a Canadian.
"It's almost the same thing, " I said.
"Well," replied Talaat, "if I let him go, will you promisethat the United States will annex Canada? "
"I promise," said I, and we both laughed at this little joke.
"Every time you come here," Talaat finally said, "youalways steal something from me. All right, you can have your McNaughton!"
Certainly this interview was not an encouraging beginning, so far asthe Armeniens were concerned. But Talaat was not always in an "AyoubSabri mood."
He went from one emotion to another as lightly as a child; I would findhim fierce and unyielding one day, and uproariously good-natured and accommodatingthe next. Prudence indicated, therefore, that I should await one of hismore congenial moments before approaching him on the subject that arousedall the barbarity in his nature. Such an opportunity was soon presented.One day, soon after the interview chronicled above, I called on Talaat again.The first thing he did was to open his desk and pull out a handful of yellowcablegrams.
"Why don't you give this money to us? " he said, with a grin.
" What money? " I asked.
"Here is a cablegram for you from America, sending you a lot ofmoney for the Armenians. You ought not to use it that way; give it to usTurks, we need it as badly as they do."
"I have not received any such cablegram," I replied.
"Oh, no, but you will," he answered. "I always get allyour cablegrams first, you know. After I have finished reading them I sendthem around to you.
This statement was the literal truth. Every morning all uncoded cablegramsreceived in Constantinople' were forwarded to Talaat, who read them, beforeconsenting to their being forwarded to their destinations. Even the cablegramsof the ambassadors were apparently not exempt, though, of course, the cipheredmessages were not interfered with. Ordinarily I might have protested againstthis infringement of my rights, but Talaat's engaging frankness about pilferingmy correspondence and in even waving my own cablegrams in my face gave mean excellent opening to introduce the forbidden subject.
But on this occasion, as on many others, Talaat was evasive and non-committaland showed much hostility to the interest which the American people weremanifesting in the Armenians. He explained his policy on the ground thatthe Armenians were in constant correspondence with the Russians. The definiteconviction which these conversations left upon my mind was that Talaat wasthe most implacable enemy of this persecuted race. "He gave me theimpression," such is the entry which I find in my diary on August 3d,"that Talaat is the one who desires to crush the poor Armenians."He told me that the Union and Progress Committee had carefully consideredthe matter in all its details and that the policy which was being pursuedwas that which they had officially adopted. He said that I must not getthe idea that the deportations had been decided upon hastily; in reality,they were the result of prolonged and careful deliberation. To my repeatedappeals that he should show mercy to these people, he sometimes respondedseriously, sometimes angrily, and sometimes flippantly.
"Some day," he once said, "I will come and discuss thewhole Armenian subject with you," and then he added, in a low tonein Turkish: "But that day will never come!"
"Why are you so interested in the Armenians, anyway?" he said,on another occasion. "You are a Jew; these people are Christians. TheMohammedans and the Jews always get on harmoniously. We are treating theJews here all right. What have you to complain of? Why can't you let usdo with these Christians as we please?"
I had frequently remarked that the Turks look upon practically everyquestion as a personal matter, yet this point of view rather stunned me.However, it was a complete revelation of Turkish mentality; the fact that,above all considerations of race and religion, there are such things ashumanity and civilization, never for a moment enters their mind. They canunderstand a Christian fighting for a Christian and a Jew fighting for aJew, but such abstractions as justice and decency form no part of theirconception of things.
"You don't seem to realize," I replied, "that I am nothere as a Jew but as American Ambassador. My country contains somethingmore than 97,000,000 Christians and something less than 3,000,000 Jews.So, at least in my ambassadorial capacity, I am 97 per cent. Christian.But after all, that is not the point. I do not appeal to you in the nameof any race or any religion, but merely as a human being. You have toldme many times that you want to make Turkey a part of the modern progressiveworld. The way you are treating the Armenians will not help you to realizethat ambition; it puts you in the class of backward, reactionary peoples."
"We treat the Americans all right, too," said Talaat. "Idon't see why you should complain."
"But Americans are outraged by your persecutions of the Armenians,"I replied. "You must base your principles on humanitarianism, not racialdiscrimination, or the United States will not regard you as a friend andan equal. And you should understand the great changes that are taking placeamong Christians all over the world. They are forgetting their differencesand all sects are coming together as one. You look down on American missionaries,but don't forget that it is the best element in America that supports theirreligious work, as well as their educational institutions. Americans arenot mere materialists, always chasing money---they are broadly humanitarian,and interested in the spread of justice and civilization throughout theworld. After this war is over you will face a new situation. You say that,if victorious, you can defy the world, but you are wrong. You will haveto meet public opinion everywhere, especially in the United States. Ourpeople will never forget these massacres. They will always resent the wholesaledestruction of Christians in Turkey. They will look upon it as nothing butwilful murder and will seriously condemn all the men who are responsiblefor it. You will not be able to protect yourself under your political statusand say that you acted as Minister of the Interior and not as Talaat. Youare defying all ideas of justice as we understand the term in our country."
Strangely enough, these remarks did not offend Talaat, but they did notshake his determination. I might as well have been talking to a stone wall.From my abstractions he immediately came down to something definite.
"These people," he said, "refused to disarm when we toldthem to. They opposed us at Van and at Zeitoun, and they helped the Russians.There is only one way in which we can defend ourselves against them in thefuture, and that is just to deport them."
"Suppose a few Armenians did betray you," I said. "Isthat a reason for destroying a whole race? Is that an excuse for makinginnocent women and children suffer?"
"Those things are inevitable," he replied.
This remark to me was not quite so illuminating as one which Talaat madesubsequently to a reporter of theBerliner Tageblatt,who asked himthe same question. "We have been reproached," he said, accordingto this interviewer, "for making no distinction between the innocentArmenians and the guilty; but that was utterly impossible, in view of thefact that those who were innocent to-day might be guilty to-morrow"!
One reason why Talaat could not discuss this matter with me freely, wasbecause the member of the embassy staff who did the interpreting was himselfan Armenian. In the early part of August, therefore, he sent a personalmessenger to me, asking if I could not see him alone---he said that he himselfwould provide the interpreter. This was the first time that Talaat had admittedthat his treatment of the Armenians was a. matter with which I had any concern.The interview took place two days afterward. It so happened that since thelast time I had visited Talaat I had shaved my beard. As soon as I camein the burly Minister began talking in his customary bantering fashion.
"You have become a young man again," he said; "you areso young now that I cannot go to you for advice any more."
"I have shaved my beard," I replied, "because it had becomevery gray---made gray by your treatment of the Armenians."
After this exchange of compliments we settled down to the business inhand. "I have asked you to come to-day," began Talaat, "sothat I can explain our position on the whole Armenian subject. We base ourobjections to the Armenians on three distinct grounds. In the first place,they have enriched themselves at the expense of the Turks. In the secondplace, they are determined to domineer over us and to establish a separatestate. In the third place, they have openly encouraged our enemies. Theyhave assisted the Russians in the Caucasus and our failure there is largelyexplained by their actions. We have therefore come to the irrevocable decisionthat we shall make them powerless before this war is ended."
On every one of these points I had plenty of arguments in rebuttal. Talaat'sfirst objection was merely an admission that the Armenians were more industriousand more able than the dull-witted and lazy Turks. Massacre as a means ofdestroying business competition was certainly an original conception! Hisgeneral charge that the Armenians were "conspiring" against Turkeyand that they openly sympathized with Turkey's enemies merely meant, whenreduced to its original elements, that the Armenians were constantly appealingto the European Powers to protect them against robbery, murder, and outrage.The Armenian problem, like most race problems, was the result of centuriesof ill-treatment and injustice. There could be only one solution for it,the creation of an orderly system of government, in which all citizens wereto be treated upon an equality, and in which all offenses were to be punishedas the acts of individuals and not as of peoples. I argued for a long timealong these and similar lines.
"It is no use for you to argue," Talaat answered, "wehave already disposed of three quarters of the Armenians; there are noneat all left in Bitlis, Van, and Erzeroum. The hatred between the Turks andthe Armenians is now so intense that we have got to finish with them. Ifwe don't, they will plan their revenge."
"If you are not influenced by humane considerations," I replied,"think of the material loss. These people are your business men. Theycontrol many of your industries. They are very large tax-payers. What wouldbecome of you commercially without them?"
"We care nothing about the commercial loss," replied Talaat."We have figured all that out and we know that it will not exceed fivemillion pounds. We don't worry about that. I have asked you to come hereso as to let you know that our Armenian policy is absolutely fixed and thatnothing can change it. We will not have the Armenians anywhere in Anatolia.They can live in the desert but nowhere else."
I still attempted to persuade Talaat that the treatment of the Armenianswas destroying Turkey in the eyes of the world, and that his country wouldnever be able to recover from this infamy.
"You are making a terrible mistake," I said, and I repeatedthe statement three times.
"Yes, we may make mistakes," he replied, "but" ---andhe firmly closed his lips and shook his head---"we never regret."
I had many talks with Talaat on the Armenians, but I never succeededin moving him to the slightest degree. He always came back to the pointswhich he had made in this interview. He was very willing to grant any requestI made in behalf of the Americans or even of the French and English, butI could obtain no general concessions for the Armenians. He seemed to mealways to have the deepest personal feeling in this matter, and his antagonismto the Armenians seemed to increase as their sufferings increased. One day,discussing a particular Armenian, I told Talaat that he was mistaken inregarding this man as an enemy of the Turks; that in reality he was theirfriend.
"No Armenian," replied Talaat, "can be our friend afterwhat we have done to them."
One day Talaat made what was perhaps the most astonishing request I hadever heard. The New York Life Insurance Company and the Equitable Life ofNew York had for years done considerable business among the Armenians. Theextent to which this people insured their lives was merely another indicationof their thrifty habits.
"I wish," Talaat now said, "that you would get the Americanlife insurance companies to send us a complete list of their Armenian policyholders. They are practically all dead now and have left no heirs to collectthe money. It of course all escheats to the State. The Government is thebeneficiary now. Will you do so?"
This was almost too much, and I lost my temper.
"You will get no such list from me," I said, and I got up andleft him.
One other episode involving the Armenians stirred Talaat to one of hismost ferocious moods. In the latter part of September, Mrs. Morgenthau leftfor America. The sufferings of the Armenians had greatly preyed upon hermind and she really left for home because she could not any longer endureto live in such a country. But she determined to make one last intercessionfor this poor people on her own account. Her way home took her through Bulgaria,and she had received an intimation that Queen Eleanor of that country wouldbe glad to receive her. Perhaps it was Mrs. Morgenthau's well-known interestin social work that led to this invitation. Queen Eleanor was a high-mindedwoman, who had led a sad and lonely existence, and who was spending mostof her time attempting to improve the condition of the poor in Bulgaria.She knew all about social work in American cities, and, a few years before,she had made all her plans to visit the United States in order to studyour settlements at first hand. At the time of Mrs. Morgenthau's visit theQueen had two American nurses from the Henry Street Settlement of New Yorkinstructing a group of Bulgarian girls in the methods of the American RedCross.
My wife was mainly interested in visiting the Queen in order that, asone woman to another, she might make a plea for the Armenians. At that timethe question of Bulgaria's entrance into the war had reached a criticalstage, and Turkey was prepared to make concessions to gain her as an ally.It was therefore a propitious moment to make such an appeal.
The Queen received Mrs. Morgenthau informally, and my wife spent aboutan hour telling her all about the Armenians. Most of what she said was entirelynew to the Queen. Little had yet appeared in the European press on thissubject, and Queen Eleanor was precisely the kind of woman from whom thetruth would be concealed as long as possible. Mrs. Morgenthau gave her allthe facts about the treatment of Armenian women and children and asked herto intercede in their behalf. She even went so far as to suggest that itwould be a terrible thing if Bulgaria, which in the past had herself sufferedsuch atrocities at the hands of the Turks, should now become their alliesin war. Queen Eleanor was greatly moved. She thanked my wife for tellingher these truths and said that she would investigate immediately and seeif something could not be done.
Just as Mrs. Morgenthau was getting ready to leave she saw the Duke ofMecklenburg standing near the door. The Duke was in Sofia at that time attemptingto arrange for Bulgaria's participation in the war. The Queen introducedhim to Mrs. Morgenthau; His Highness was polite, but his air was rathercold and injured. His whole manner, particularly the stern glances whichhe cast on Mrs. Morgenthau, showed that he had heard a considerable partof the conversation. As he was exerting all his efforts to bring Bulgariain on Germany's side, it is not surprising that he did not relish the pleawhich Mrs. Morgenthau was making to the Queen that Bulgaria should not allyherself with Turkey.
Queen Eleanor immediately interested herself in the Armenian cause, and,as a result, the Bulgarian Minister to Turkey was instructed to protestagainst the atrocities. This protest accomplished nothing, but it did arouseTalaat's momentary wrath against the American Ambassador. A few days afterward,when routine business called me to the Sublime Porte; I found him in anexceedingly ugly humour. He answered most of my questions savagely and inmonosyllables, and I was afterward told that Mrs. Morgenthau's intercessionwith the Queen had put him into this mood. In a few days, however, he wasas good-natured as ever, for Bulgaria had taken sides with Turkey.
Talaat's attitude toward the Armenians was summed up in the proud boastwhich he made to his friends: "I have accomplished more toward solvingthe Armenian problem in three months than Abdul Hamid accomplished in thirtyyears!"
