The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1918. A REVIVIFIED ARMENIA.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 December 1918, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1918. A REVIVIFIED ARMENIA.

it was reported, recently that the Armenians of the Ararat region :l;ad formed a republic and declared their iudepenlence. One lias to go back a good many centuries in history for ail independent Armenia. There were independent Armenian princes in tilieia in the Middle Ages who lent a good deal of material support to the Crusaders, and an autonomous district of Cilicia perpetuated the traditions of the Middle Ages right up to tfiie end of the nineteenth century. But Armenia proper, by which is meant the region of Ararat and Lake Van, has virtually always been subject to some "foreign" Power. The Armenians, indeed, were much like the Jews, in that they made no great concerted effort to assert their political independence against the Turks, but unlike the Jews, .they remained for the most part within the Turkish Empire. It is true that Armenians, like Syrians, migrated and established themselves successfully in ■inany foreign countries, but their Siome was within the Turkish dominions, and there the great majority of them i.'emained, in spite of political disabilities and active oppression. In 1914 Uiere were some two million Armenians in the Turkish Empire, and probably a million and a quarter in Russian territory. The great mass of the race was concentrated in the area between Mosul Mid the Black pSea arid ■ between Lrzingan and the Caucasus range. An Armenian belt extended, also, southwest towards Adana and the coast of Asia Minor opposite Cyprus. Then a proportion of the race was, scattered through the Empire. There would be, l or instance, about 150,000 in the neighborhood of Constantinople. The bond uf race alone perhaps not have lieen sufficient to hold them together, I 'Mt they had their own language, their nwn customs, their own civilisation, indeed, and then they were Christians in (i heathen land. . The Armenians had been converted to Christianity at the imd of the third century by St. Geogory, and the Gregorian Church had its own Bible and Liturgy. Oppressed by the Turks, they acquired for themselves a .itatus as traders, professional men and skilled artisans, and it is claimed that, with their high intelligence, energy and. enterprise, they had an economic and Bocial importance in the Turkish Empire out of all proportion to their numbers. The Russian war of IS7S offered iin opportunity for the liberation of 'the Armenians from the Turkish yoke, but it was missed, and the Armenians remained a subject people, on whom, at intervals, brutal Turkish Governors exercised to the full a passion for "suppression." There is no occasion here to enter into the Mstorjr of Armenian massacres, but the culminating episode of the Turkish oppression of the ancient race deserves more than passing notice. It was ill 1915, after the Young Turks had thrown in their lot with Germany, that the idea of deporting or exterminating Hie Armenians was carried into effect. This terrible episode is said to have originated with a German professor, Dr. llohrbach, an expert in racial problems, who suggested that the Armenians ought to be moved from their j Highlands south to develop the regions to be opened up by the Bagdad railway. Rohrbaeh argued that the Armenians were an inconvenient alien bar to the union of the Turks of Asia Minor with . the Turkish races of North-western Persia and Central Asia. It was a far-fetched idea, but it happened to fit m with the Turkish mood for the moment. It was not Rohrbaclrs proposition, however, that set the persecution movement on foot. That had already J begun. The presence of Armenians in the Russian forces, and the allegation , that Turkish Armenians had assisted ; the invading Russians provoked the Turkish Government to strike. Its first move was to disarm the Armenians and to force all Armenian recruits out . of the army divisions and into labor battalions. Then Hoilirbaeh's proposal was put into operation. The scheme involved nothing less than the deporta ; tion of two million Armenians into the i barren regions between the Tigris and i the Euphrates. Actually the "migration'' resolved itself into a massacre. \ The Armenians had to travel by inoun- t tain roads to the southern plains. They were 'herded together, Without adequate clothing, with no facilities of 1 traii!ji;>rt, wifchi no ■ provision for en- t campment on the road, and without . food supplies. Thousands of those who ! set. out died by the wayside. Thou- 1 sands more were .killed by Turks or j Kurds. The scheme broke down, as it , was bound to break down, .but it was carried sufficiently far to develop into perhaps the most terrible single episode 1 of the whole war period. After'suc'ln a , demonstration of the Turkish attitude ' towards the race and of the Turkish 1 indifference to the dictates of human- ' ity, it goes without saying that the Armenians' cannot longer be left under i Turkish domination, and tSie indepen-! , deut republic that has foeen proclaimed '

in ilio region oil either side of the Russo-'furkish frontier will perhaps be found the final solution of the whole Armenian problem.