The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-02-03
Charged with Committing Crimes In
Order to Provoke Retaliation and
Thus Win Outside Sympathy.
HALF HAS NOT BEEN TOLD
AND NEITHER ARMENIAN NOR TURK
SEEM TO WANT, ALL KNOWN.
Old Story of Bulgaria Over Again
Missionaries Indirectly Responsible
How to-Be Brides Are Treated.

Copyrighted, 1895, by the Associated Press.
LONDON, Feb. "A letter has been re-
ceived here from the special correspondent
Of the Associated Press who was sent to
Armenia from London to investigate the re-
ported Armenian atrocities and who at
present is in Armenia. For reasons that will
be readily understood the name of this COR
respondent is withheld, but he is a. news
paper man, well-known in America, and he
was instructed to make an impartial inves-
tigation Of the stories told Of Turkish cruel
ty- The correspondent spent week or
more in Constantinople before starting for
Armenia, during which time he investigated
the reports current there, and continued his
journey. His first letter has just reached
here after having been posted by a trusted
messenger at Tifiis, Russia. 1t contains the
first authentic news direct from Armenia,
and says: Whatever secrets may lie
der the snow on the Armenian mountain, 1t
seems beyond dispute from what l have
heard from many lips that the published
stories of ferocious butchery in the Sassoun
villages have at least reasonable founda-
ton of truth and that any change author
lied by further investigation, will deal
more with numbers than with the degree
of horror"
But from what the correspondent says in
sides to the Armenian story. he remarks:
But no matter what light we throw on the
spasmodic wickedness of the Turk or on the
ingenious deviltry of the revolutionary con-
spirators, we find that it is still the inno-
cent who suffer most The Turks declare
that the Armenians have inflicted shocking
outrageS on Turkish men and women, and
from what is already known of conspiracy
methods it is quite likely that the assertion
is true. For instance, it is reported that as
a means of melting the Turks to commit
outrages that viii bring down on them the
wrath of a civilized world, Armenians have
thrust gun cartridges into the bodies of liv-
ing Turkish men and women ,and have ex-
ploded them, and that in the case of one
man a hole was made just below the bones
of the chest for the insertion of quantity
of gunpowder, which was then ignited as a
sort of bomb. These facts are known at the
embassies in Constantinople, and possibly
they have been transmitted in reports to
the various governments"
THE SASSOUN MASSACRE.
The correspondent also remarks: "The
impartial truth of the Sassoun massacre
will probably never be known. for the dead
tell no tales A careful sitting of all the
facts obtainable from trustworthy sources
in Constantinople, Sassoun, Kerrasun,
| Trebizonde and Bitlis indicates that
this is what happened: Certain
Armenian peasants, to the number
of several thousands, We're tending their
herds and fiocks in their summer pastures
| ders of Kurdistan. They were living in mere
temporary villages which they inhabited
only during the summer pasture season,
| leys. They were under the protection OF a
| tribe of Kurds, who were under contract to
defend them against the raids of cattle
stealers and Kurdish bandits. A short time
before the villagers We're ready to return to
tened teaer ntes eattie, " m band Of kurdish bandits
| industriously searching for a winters sup
ply OF provisions Talnea ,her made
| a vigorous defense. They would have won
| the fight and driven off the thieves, and
| fighting was over the Turkish government
| came into the affair, and then the real
Gonstantinonle esuudiu that a revolution was in
| progress among the Armenians in the Sas-
SCUM mountain sTi wi Villages, and the order came
Punish the villagers to the utmost ex-
| tremity.'
] into the truth of the rumor, and the officers
| intrusted with the execution of the order
1 paused not to investigate the facts when
| Kurdish bandits joined forces with the
| Turkish regulars, and even the Kurds who
| traitor and swelled the numbers of the gov
| ernment troops. The poor Armenian peas
i
| of Turkish regulars and two bands of
| Kurds. Then the massacre began. For the
| still they fought, as only men can fight
| who defend their wives and children from
outrage and death. They took refuge In
| their houses and barricaded themselves in,
| but the Kurdish cannon made short work
| of these, and when they ran in terror
/ from hiding place to hiding place they were
| slain without mercy-man, Woman and
/ child.
| rbiI hy Turks in that part of the n
i try is so common thing. even in times of
| absolute quiet, that there can be no doubt
/ that this massacre was attended with out
rage and atrocity too horrible to think of.
| The Armenians in Athens and Constanti-
popie assert that forty-twO villages were
| destroyed and nearly ten thousand persons
| massacred. but a more impartial and equally
we-informea person p puts f',i ane nuinoer a tr at
4 thousand persons killed. The exact number
/ will never be known
THE BUTCHERS REWARDED.
/ 1.-THE Sultan well pleased with the
| work of his soldiers that he sent thanks
| and decorations to the officers and for
warded flags to be presented to the regi-
| ments engaged in the awful butchery. Those
| flags have not-yet been handed over to the
| regiments. although the regulars went out
| to escort to their headquarters the messen-
gers who brought them. 1t is thought the
presentation will be deferred until the ex-
| citement over the Sassoun affair has sub
| commission of inquiry might see these nags
| if he went at IL in the right way. AS for
| the Turkish commission, IT Is such a fraud
| that it IS q waste of breath to talk about
| IL This assertion may seem to be of the
| nature of hanging man before he In tried,
but in ConsfantinopIe no European of ordi-
| nary intelligence has any other view Of it.
| I'm the foreign embassies there is. OF
| course disposition to give the Turks a
chance to show what the commission will
| do. with. perhaps. a hope that the European
| delegates VIII have good effect towards
II creating at least d semb1ance OF investi-
CATION: but as the foreign delegates have
! no power to direct the course Of the in-