Norwich bulletin., 1915-11-03
pR. ussHER TELLS OF
 ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA.
Says They Were Concerted Efforts on the Pert of Turkish covernment to Stamp Out Christianity.

oays iney were Concerfed Enorts on the Psrt of Turkish Government to
 Stamp Out Christianity. country that yielded each day it's thousands of victims to enraged bands of zealots, was told by pr. Clarence p. Ussher. late medical missionary of the First church in Van. Turkey, and son-fn-law of Rev and Mrs. J. O. RarrDws of this city. in an interest ing interview at Springfield Dr. Ns- sher emphatically stated that the atrocities which the Turks committed were not caused by individual action. part of the government to stamp out Christianity among the Armenians.
 He is still weak from his experi- ences and was unable to speak for any great length of time. He told of firing by the Turkish troops upon United States and Red Cross flags by Turkish bullets and of outrages that show the utterly coid-biodded manner in which the Turks have tried to exterminate the Armenians.
 First of all. want to declare that the representations made by the Turk ish government that the massacre of over 250.0e0 Armenians was a military necessity due to rebeilions outbreaks are utterly false, declared pr. drafted into the Turkish forces at the time of mobilization have been the life of the army, The Ottoman officers lined the Armenians up in the first line of battle as buffer to the Turk ish troops, who threatened to shoot the Armenians down if they failed to stand up under the strain of battle. And the civilian population did noth- ing to excite the anger of the Turkish soldiery. .eounseis to attempt no re- sistance having been spread among them. Sometimes the Turks took Ar menians out of the army. tied them to the trees and practiced shooting at them. One of the Turkish officers, asked why he had ordered a certin Armenian shot. explained that he had to desert the army.
 And the action of the Turks in do- ing this sort of thing in the army was paralleied in the way they treated the civilian population" continued Dr. Ussher. From January of this year the provinces surrounding Van wers scenes of brutality that defies descrip- tion and when the month of April came and the same sort of atrocities were committed in our city we saw some of the worst evidences of Otto- man cruelty. things such as cannot be described. On April 16 the massacres in the province of Van started, al first h cities and town distant from the city of Van. In two days 55.000 people, mostly old men and boys had been killed. The first night reports of what had happened at other placer l in the province came to our city.
 The governor general called four of the most prominent Armenians in the city into his presence and asked them | to go to these cities and towns as a peace commission. The first night out of the city the four men were foully | rr1trrdnpod The 6Qu the 0r1lU menian in Van who belonged to the Turkish parliament was seized by the military authorities and deported.
 '-Thc Turkish troops were sent to wipe out the population of Shadakh, a town 2. short distance from the city oi Van. No secret was made of the or ders. The people of this village brave | ly defended themselves against the Turkish aggression and a small band | of them held out for weeks against what was said to be a force of 15,00C Kurds. Other troops massacred six villages while this expedition to Sha- dalxh was in progress. Meanwhile or April IS the governor general sum- moned me and told me that he must
 quarter 50 of his troops with 10 days provisions in our hospital. When pro-
 tested that our premises were neutral | ground, he replied that if the soldiers were not allowed to enter I must sign paper saying that I had refused the protection of the Ottoman government To my query as to why protection was very likely to fire upon our quarters al
 any tune and that the Armenians might also do us damage.
 | T told him that if the soldiers came into our hospital their commander must receive written orders and thai
 a copy of these orders must be giver
 to me. I also wished him to cut dowr
 the number from 50 to 10, because oul premises overlooked the Armenian
 quarter and I feared treachery on tn,
 part of the troops. told the governor 1 that if any of these soldiers fired from | our premises would shoot him on tn, | spot, as my premises were neutral, anC | my government would back me up II
 my attempt to keep them neutral. Int l governor then gave up the attempt tt get the soldiers in our premises.
 | "The next day. April 19, the Turkish
 soldiers began digging trenches abou
 the Armenian quarter of the town. II the meantime, the military authoritiel | in the town of Agantz summoned tn,
 2,500 Armenians living there to tn,
 town hall and made an enumeration O. them. Under pretense that an officia lcommunication from the sultan was ts be read, gendarmes were sent out tS
 bring in all who failed to answer tt ! their names. In this way all but thre' of the men of the town were brough II
 in patches of 50. disarmed and shot "On April 20 an Armenian girl whs
 had fled from one of the villages ti
 Van appeared at the Turkish trenches | about the Armenian quarter and triet to gain entrance to it. Some Turkisl soldiers sprang upon her and began l outraging her. A couple of Armenian young men who happened to be pass ing jumped to her aid and were sho dead immediately. This seemed to b. the signal. for from that moment tn sound of firing lasted 28 days withou a let-up. The Armenians. caught i
 their trap. fought braveiy against over
 whelming numbers and more than hel
 their own. Our hospftakand home wer
 not respected, and shot and shell wer
 fired into our premises. the Unite
 States and the Red Cross flags wer riddled and the neutrality of ou
 premises violated in other ways. Il
 the midst of the fighting I was take
 down with the typhus, leaving the cit
 of 5000. people without a single phy
 sicfan. When the great exodus fror
 Van began was borne on a litter owe
 the foot of Mt. Ararat. exiles to th
 number of 250, 900 accompanying ou
 party The Turkish troops along tn
 mountains fired down upon us an | ri zfF r1rrw aavx-ov fa af