VIVID STORY OF MASSACRE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 146, 17 July 1909, Page 3

VIVID STORY OF MASSACRE.

I ENGLISH LADY'S HEROISM. * iIOW THE CHRISTIANS DIED. From two sources whose veracity cannot be questioned some details arc to hand of the massacres in Asia Minor. Mrs. Dough ty-Wylie, wife of the British Vice-consul, in a letter to her mother, describes with the vividness of an eyewitness the horrors of the last days* of the rule of the late Sultan, Abdul Humid. Major Doughty-Wy lie—a .soldier who lias taken juvrt in many campaigns—was severely wounded while engaged in the 1 work; of rescue, liis heroic s'erviees have won from the American missionaries laurels that will not fade. Mrs. j Poughty-Wylic also, according to im- ! partial witnesses, displayed the courago jof her race a;ul by her devotion and .energy saved many Jives. Coincidence in date and the terrible record of the deposed Sultan point to fcis complicity in these atrocious murders, by which, it is believed, he hoped to bring about European intervention that might save him from the vengeance of the parliamentary reformers. Warned from Constantinople of evil, designs against them, the Armenians' took advantage of the free entry of fire arms since the Constitution and armed themselves. One of their number, di fending himself against atrocious dia honor, shot two Turks. This was th. signal to obey the summons of a well known bodja, or Moslem cleric, to mas sacre. The attention of the Vali, oj Governor, was called to the danger, bui he took no precautious, and throughout the massacres exhibited the customary indifference.

Tlie soldiers led the way in thest horrors, and were guilty of atrocities so terrible that tliey can never be described nn a .public print. Even the soldier landed, at Mersina on 24th April—tin soldiers sent expressly to restore ordci —added to the crimes, and for threecays continued the murders unchecked These soldiers landed under the guns of foreign warships, whose commandei naturally believed that they had conu to rescue, not to murder. Only oiu> lurkish olficer seems' to have had courage _to resist these appeals to the furj of fanaticism. Major Loufti, with a few dozen soldiers, saved hundreds oJ Armenians in Missis, and was rcwardeu by.the Turks setti<ig lire to his Mr. Chaniibcrs, a Canadian, and the heao of the American mission in Adana, also did lieroic work. From ill's. Dougkty-Wylre's letter tbi following extracts arc made:— "FIENDS INCARNATE." We are having a perfectly hideou> lime here. Thousands have been mur dered —25,000 in this province, they gay; but the number is probably greater, l'oi ever}- Christian village was wiped out in .Adana about jive thousand havi perished. After Turks and Armenians liad made peace and the Armenians ha<. given up their arms, the Turks canii iu the night with hose and kerosene end set lire to what remained of tlu Armenian quarter. Next day the Frend and Armenian schools wore fired. Near ly everyone in thc v Armenian school perished, anybody trying to escape Veinj. shot down by the soldiers. In the I reach school a large numbei of Fathers and »Si6ters, with two thousand Armenians, were rescued by Dick (Major Doughty*Wylie). Thirty whe tried to escape were shot. Dick founii their bodies at the gate; but lie got tlu survivors out of the schools and brought them right through the Turkish qua.rtei without losing a soul. Altogether he got several thousand people out of tlu burning quarter, aaid encamped them rear our temporary dwelling. I have the hospital—eixty-five beds so far, and about one hundred and lift\ out-patients requiring surgical dressings. Fifteen thousand starving people are to be fed, and we arc running into debt nicely. The Turkish authorities do nothing except arrest unoffending Armenians, from whom by torture they extort the; most fanciful confessions. Even the l wounded are not safe from their injust tice. A man was being carried in to me yesterday when he was seized and taken off to gaol. I dare not think what his fate may be. For fiends incarnate commend me to the Turks. Xobodv is safe from them. The.v murder babies in front of their mothers; they half-nuirder men and violate th:> wives while the* husbands are lying there dying in pools of blood. Then they say it is the fault of the Armenians because there existed a revolutionary society of about sixty memLcrs, who talked and wrote a good deal of rot. This is the Turkish w;iy ol putting down a revolutionary sociciv! We arrived in Adana from Mcrsin;i the first day of the massacre, 14th April. Tte murderers boarded the train. There

was a rush of Armenian passengers into cur compartment. While I tried to back them up a bit Dick went and tackled an assassin whei was just going to shoot somebody else. At Tarsus ihi'v murdered two men who were cumins; from the station just behind us. fli'm man made a nwli and sruineel the' fruard- ' house, hut ilie soldiers shoved him out and watched liim dune to death in tile road. Dick got into uniform the moment he arrived, anil we saw 1111 more of him till eleven at night. He had been rescuing all the foreign subjects he could find. The following day 1 saw more brutal murders. An Armenian quarter rear us was attacked by Arab soldiers trom our guard, anil was practically wiped out. Their officers and one or two decent soldiers stuck to the guardhouse and took no part in the murders. The officers, at my earnest appeal, oven saved some women and children, but how dreadfully shot they were! After an hour's argument I got a Creek doctor to come out with inc to the guardhouse and dress the wounded women and children. The room was a puddle of blood, and while wc were working there a wounded Armenian, who was staggering in to be dressed, wan stabbed to death by some of the soldiers. I saw many murders, and nobody seemed to care. The authorities did nothing, anil the soldiers were worse than tire crowd, for they were better armed. One house in our quarter was burned with one hundred and fifteen people inside. We counted the bodies. The soldiers set lire to the door, and as the windows had iron bar* nobody could get out. Everybody in the house was roa"steel alive. They were all women and children and old people. It was in that part of the town that Dick was wounded. They told him that Some wounded Turkish soldiers were lying am on» the burning houses, and he went to rescue them—which they certainly did not deserve. The bouse from which lie was shot hail a garden li»lr,l wSlli deail women anil children, and I have no douht that same Armenian who had lost his entire family and most of his friends sliol, him in a sort of mail 111 probably taking him for a Turk. SLAUGHTER IN THE FIELDS. Outside Adana every Christian village —Greek-, Syrian, o r Armenian—has been l.iirned and every soul in llieni killed. Unfortunately, it was just before harvest, and thousands of peasants from the mountains and other districts wore there to start work, e'rom one hundred to twn hundred men and women were murdered in every farm. Turkish farms were not burned or looted, but the Ariiii'uiau servant*' were killed. T know cf only one farmer—a friend of ours—wlw had the nerve to save his Armenians.

A French engineer and an Knglislj traveller gallantly did some saving. Tliev had escorts, and the Frenchman stood a three-days' siege and made his! excorfc fight some Circassians' to s«m ! dozen Armenians. It was gallantly dun-. . The Englishman, («unter, refused to save himself unless the Armenians who had thrown hmwolves on his protection were saved. It was touch and go for the. lot, hut Britiis'li pluck won, and ho got bis own terms. The (.ermans, however, who wore shut no in ji place called liorche, gave up the Armenians in their house as the price of their own safety. Here the fjermans are working splo'ndidlv 0:1 rellief work. Theu are all Saxons, and | had a factory full of Armenian*. whieh held out all When the Armenians were -being brought out of the factory the en inn a* things were supposed to he ijiiiel. the .soldiers started killing jh'eni. J happened to he at the guardhouse. and got my little officer to go to the rescue, and all were brought iTi safe•lv except three who had been already shot. 1 Things are still very unsettled. Murders and fires continue, hut. of course, it is not like I he first days of horror. ' We have thirteen thousand people [starving and without shelter. All wo can /rive them id a fragment of bread or a handful of rice. *Wo have nolhing more to give: no milk for the hahies—nothing. And measles and dysentery are rife.