ملف ٧٠٥/١٩١٦ الجزء ٢ "انتفاضة عربية: التقارير العربية؛ تقارير السير م. سايكس" [و‎‎٥‎١] (٤٥٠/٩٩)

were concerned. An accident might have happened subsequently, but that was no
fault or theirs. &uch was the view taken of the above • incident by Jemal when he
neaici <>i it 5 according to a report which reached the writer.
^ Tn ail 1 d 1 tS , lirst swept away half the numbers in these camps in a few weeks.
’ 086 at r e ^ ec a wretched existence; all family life had been broken up, husbands,
wives, children had been separated, and there were no means of finding out what had
become 01 those who were missing. Immorality flourished; sanitation in its most
elementary form did not exist.
-jJ 11 the meantlme Jeraal ^udlj proclaimed that he was colonising waste lands with
thrilty Armenians, which was enough for the inspired press of the Central Powers to
give out to the world that m the last two years Syria and Palestine, under Jemals
administration, had flourished more than in the whole of the preceding fifty years.
^ A flat refusal was given to representatives of neutral countries who asked to go to
Syria to witness the conditions under which the Armenians lived.
Slave Markets.
In the track of the Armenians, as they were driven along, female slave-markets
were ^established.^ The price of an Armenian girl from 12 to 14 years of age was from
2 mejidiehs to £ T 1 . The writer saw such a market in Damascus, and he was told by
his relatives in Aleppo and by American missionaries that thousands of young girls had
been solo m open markets, ihe so-called intellectual leaders of the Moslem world, the
Khojas, Ulemas, Padis, and Muftis, were not slow to avail themselves of the oppor
tunities that these markets offered, and these frequently saved their pockets and increased
the numbers of their slaves by claiming to have made converts, in which case no money
transaction was demanded.
Conversion to Islam.
These alleged converts were usually young women who were driven into harems
ostensibly for the purpose of being instructed in the “ true faith ” ! Conversion to
Islam was attempted on a large scale, among men as well as women, and with some
success amongst those Armenians from some parts of the Caucasus who had long
practiced some Turkish customs, and whose belief in Christianity was not deeply
rooted, but the writer knows of a number of educated and wealthy Armenians of
Constantinople and the coast towns who have professed their conversion. The latter
seem however to have taken this step in the hope of preserving at least some of their
property from confiscation.
Wholesale Massacres.
So far a description has been given of the destruction of the Armenian nation
by organised deportation accompanied by neglect and by the unchecked ravages of
disease but in addition there is systematic butchery of men and boys. The usual
method employed was to organise labour battalions in which boys and men were
collected together and these were sent under a guard of about twenty Turkish soldiers
to some out-of-the-w T ay place where no provision was made for rations or water. The •
guard was given orders to use their rifles without hesitation in case of desertion, or
any sign of mutiny, on the part of those put under their charge. After a day or two
the guard would return alone. The story given was either the Armenians as a whole
attempted to desert, or that there had been a mutiny and the guard in self defence
had been compelled to kill the lot. The writer never witnessed such a scene himself
but he had reports from trustworthy sources. One of his informants was an Armenian
who speaking and dressing like a Turk had travelled from Armenia to Jaffa. There
he mixed with a number of Turkish soldiers who had just executed the butchery of
about 400 Armenians in the manner described above and who regaled him with many-
repulsive details. This man on the following day came upon a heap of murdered
Armenians, and journeying on to Aleppo he made a full report of his experience to the
American consul there.
German Opinion.
The writer discussed these murders with German officers in Constantinople, and
they admitted that unfortunately they were entirely true.
[898—20]
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