The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1915-09-26
Viscount Bryce's Charges of Wholesale
Atrocities Fully Borne Out
by Private Advices

J around Sivas where 600, 900 Ar
menians lived is now swept clean OF
them. Hundreds Of thousands, IL is
alleged, have gone into Russia, but the
mass Of the people who were not sedi-
uous or a lena to the Turkish Gov
eminent have been left to become
helpless victims"
Through a business house having
dealings with Turkey comes tho fol-
lowing account OF the systematic de-
portation Of Armenian citizens OF that
land:
suspicion on the part of the Turi-
ish Government of the loyalty Of their
Armenian citizens has led to some
drastic repressive measures, namely,
disarmament of all -Moslem SOL
diers in the army. rigid espionage and
n deportation of Armenians en- masse
from some towns and villages in GEN.
trail Turkey. There have beea de-
ported to date 26,5o0; OF whom 5000
have been sent to the konieh region.
$500 TO Ateppo and its vicinity and the
remainder to Mesopotamia. some ~
them nearly as far as Bagdad.
The process Is still going on, with
no indication as to where 1t will stop.
A general order was recently pub
lished giving all military commander.
power to deport at their discretion
any persons. individually or en- masse.
of whose loyalty they may have sus.
picion.
Although the orders for the de-
portation may have been humane tie
manner of their execution has often
been brutally harsh. one ward o, a
city or a whole village has been sent
OF at literally an hours notice ana
without opportunity to prepare food
for the journey, to provide animals for
the weak or aged. to collect their
Hooks or herds, or even. in some cases,
all the members of the family. Even
when time permitted they were OBJ
l!ged TO sell off their property a: a
small fraction Of its value and in some
cases were prevented from selling 4, at
all. Conditions of travel. hard at best.
have been made uncomfortable and even
fatal In NAM cases by the brutality
o, the gendarmes in charge.
Most OF the men having been CON
scripted, four-fifths of the whole num-
her deported are women and children.
The women are obliged to carry their
babies, themselves often going bare
footed and hungry. In exhaustion
and despair they have abandoned a
good many of them 10y the wayside.
upon the road.
I'm some places the Government has
fed these refugees fairly well. n in
some places half fed them. In other
places il has not only not fed them,
ii has prevented others from duing SO.
There has been great distress from
hunger and thirst upon the road. and
IA good many deaths even. Women
and girls have been outraged.
These people are being scattered
over a wide area, among people of
another language and religion. The
orders are that they bee scattered in
the villages. in small groups of three
or our families each. No adequate
provision is being made for their sub
sistenCc. and niles aid comes from
outside the next few months will see
most Of them destroyed by hunger and
disease
From a correspondent in the Otto
man EIlplTe mas Detn received the
following dramatic picture Of scenes
alleged To have taken place recently:
THE atrocities nov committed in
Turkey surpass anything hat has
ever preceded. even in the palmiest
days of Abdul. the Arch Assassin
They are carefully planned and dia-
bolically executed, and include tor
ture of the most revolving types, muir
der by the wholesale and a venomous
method of deportation that separates
families and sends large numbers OF
the victims to inevitable death.
I'm one prosperous city twelve OF
the leading Armenian men were taken
out upon the road under pretence OF
deportation. In a few hours the
guards returned alone, A few days
later 800 more men followed the same