Читать книгу The Armenian Crisis in Turkey - Frederick Davis Greene - Страница 12

[The following is from a different source.]

A..., Oct. 31, 1894.

We have word from Bitlis that the destruction of life in Sassoun, south of Moosh, was even greater than was supposed. The brief note which has reached us says: “Twenty-seven villages annihilated in Sassoun. Six thousand men, women, and children massacred by troops and Kourds. This awful story is just beginning to be known here, though the massacre took place early in September. The Turks have used infinite pains to prevent news leaking out, even going to the length of sending back from Trebizond many hundreds from the Moosh region who had come this way on business.” This massacre was ordered from Constantinople in the sense that some Kourds having robbed Armenian villages of flocks, the Armenians pursued and tried to recover their property, and a fight ensued in which a dozen Kourds were killed. The slain were “semi-official robbers,” i.e., enrolled as troops and armed as such, but not under control. The authorities then telegraphed to Constantinople that Armenians had “killed some of the Sultan’s troops.” The Sultan at once ordered infantry and cavalry to put down the Armenian rebellion, and they did it; only, not finding any rebellion, they cleared the country so that none should occur in the future.