File 5655/1918 Pt 2 'Mesopotamia: Refugee Camp at Baqubah (1920 – papers)' [‎114v] (234/946)

(c) These are traced to Jacobus Baradaeus (6th century) in Syria and Mesopotamia.
They maintained a position near the borders of the Eastern Roman Empire in spite
of persecution by the Byzantine Government.
II. (a)-(d) The Uniate Churches are those portions of the independent Churches
that have been brought (mostly since the 17th century) to accept the spiritual
supremacy of the Pope. But they differ from the Roman Catholic Church and from
each other in matters of ritual, liturgy, ecclesiastical laws and customs. They have
a separate hierarchy and tend to resent any assumption of authority on the part of
the Roman Catholic curia. These Churches are derivatives of the independent
Churches.
As regards group III.: these fall into two groups
(a) Protestant converts from I. and II. who were officially recognised as one
“ millet ” collectively.
(b) Secessionists :
(i) New Chaldeans.
(ii) Orthodox Armenians.
E. —The Assyrian refugees of Baqubah, now in the Mosul Vilayet en route for
the Urmia district, are Nestorians or East Syrians, and are being repatriated to
districts which may he regarded as their homes.
The French interest, as indicated by their notes to the Foreign Office, is
professedly in the Jacobites, the majority of whom live w r est of Jazirat al ’Umar.
None of these are among the refugees who are being repatriated to the Urmia district
or are maintained as refugees on our charge. What Jacobites there may be from west
of Jazirat al ’Umar in Mesopotamia now are at liberty to return to their homes as they
wish. They are in no sense Nestorians as the French seemed to imply in their
first note.
The refugees are, in fact, East Syrians, as opposed to West Syrians or Jacobites,
and originate from areas east and north-east of Jazirat al ’Umar, from districts
outside both French and British zones. Their homes were generally between Lake
Van, Lake Urmia, and Mosul, in the Hakkiari district of Turkish Kurdistan and in
the Urmia plains of North-West Persia (Khoi, Salmas and Urmia). In the summer
of 1915 the mountaineer section of Assyrians from Turkish Kurdistan were driven
into the Persian districts in and about the Urmia plains, where they joined up with
their co-religionists. When early in November 1917 our Russian allies decided to
withdraw their forces from North-West Persia, the Assyrians were armed by the
retiring Russians, much to the resentment of the Persians. The Persians early in
1918 ordered them to disarm and attempted to enforce their order. This led to
disturbances in Khoi, Salmas and Urmia. After a to and fro of fighting with the
Kurds, when about the middle of April 1918 a Turkish force was reported to be
advancing from the direction of Sujbulak and Ushnu, the Assyrians advanced to meet
this force. An initial success at Ushnu was followed by an attack by Persian
democrats, who ruthlessly massacred some 4,000 Assyrians settled at Khoi. Finally,
threatened by overwhelming numbers and without ammunition, these Assyrians were
forced to leave their homes in the Urmia plains and to begin their long southerly
march through hostile country to seek protection behind the British, whom they had
long expected to come to their succour. It is not to be supposed that they would
ever willingly migrate to the French sphere west of Jazirat al ’Umar so long as there
is any prospect of their being able to settle in their ancient homes.
F. —The “ Millet/” which chiefly concerns His Majesty’s Government as man
datory Power for the vilayats of Mosul and Baghdad^is the Chaldean, i.e. Group II. (6),
a progressive body of cultivators and artisans chiefly resident in and around Mosul.
They are^W'Hny cnse v not to be confused with the Nestorian Millet,. whose original
homes are outside the limits of French and British mandates.