The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1917-10-13
German Officers and Ger
man Cannon Broke Down
Feeble Resistance
TURKS MERELY DID
THE SLAUGHTERING
Returned Missionary Tells
Of Cold Blooded Massa-
ere of Entire Race
(By Associated Press.)

ana suggested to the Turks by Ger
man officials" and where the Ar
menians made a stand against their
Moslem oppressors it was German
officers and German cannon that
broke them up according to the Rev.
Alpheus Newell Andrus, senior mis-
sionary for the Congregational sta
ton at Mardin, Mesopotamia, who
told of his experiences here today.
The farsighted Germans, he said,
were looking forward to the time
when they expected to gain complete
dominion in Turkey and they wanted
to eliminate the Armenian question
by getting rid of the Armenian race.
One of the ways the Turks went
about II was to load Armenian men
on goatskin RATS on the understand
ing that they were to be deported-
and then they were taken out and
dumped into the Tigris river and
drowned" he said. This was the
fate of at least $500 men from the
vicinity Of Diarbekir and its suburbs
in northern MesopOtamia.
Armed soldiers were on the RATS,
which each carried about seventy
five to a hundred victims. Kurd
boatmen rowed them out into deep
water. Then the soldiers would drive
the Armenians to one side of the
RATS until they tilted and dumped
them into the river. If they tried to
climb back on the RATS the soldiers
and boatmen beat them and shot
them until all persisted"
Planned In Cold Blood.
The Germans and the Turkish gov
eminent. DR.. Andrus said, looked
upon the destruction Of the Ar
menians in Turkey as a cold blooded
political move. and gave the actual
Kurds and Turkish soldiers who
went about it with the ferocity OF
Moslem religious fanatiCism.
AT first the Turkish government
objected to the German suggestion
of the removal of the Armenians on
the grounds that they were valuable
as artisans and business men and
necessary to the economic life Of the
country" continued DR.. Andrus,
but the Germans promised to sup
ply men to take their places. Having
persuaded the Turks. the Germans
then left it to them to put the plan
into effect.
But the Turkish soldiers in some
places could not overcome the Ar
menians. At UTfa. the city of suffer-
ing, the Armenians resolved to resist
and defend their limo
cent families and their church. They
barricaded themselves in their stone
houses in their quarter. For ten days
they withstood all the effort of the
Turkish soldiery to dislodge them. In
the end they would have prevailed
but that German officers brought
and trained cannon upon their
and forced them to flee.
Surely such a people should not
be allowed to perish. There still re-
main of them to be cared for $500
in Urfa and nearby. Will not the
American people help care for them?
in Mesopotamia have not
been brought much to the public's
attention for the reason that there
has not been anyone to report the
state of things there and because no
report could get past the rigid Turk
ism censorship.
More than 10000 Armenians were
deported from Diarbekir and it's sub
urbs. 1t was some of these who were
into the Tigris and drowned
The leading and rich men were
tailed to dig trenches and to do 9TH ,
er work with only an insufficient al
lowance of bread daily. Later they
we're shot in groups, when no longer
able to endure the hardships i'm
posed.
Epidemies Follow.
There followed an epidemic of
cholera and then a scourge of typhus.
Before the war and deportations the
city contained some $4,000 inhabi-
ants. The last / heard there were
only 1000 citizens left there.
Women were dubbed, stabbed or
shot down on the Mesopotamian |
plains and left for dead in piles on |
he ground or thrown into old els |
.erns. Some, coming to consciousness,
;rawled out from the piles and up |
rom the cisterns and dragged them |
selves up the mountain to our hos
lital at Mardin to have their wounds |
dressed
Some of the Moslems at Mardin |
,ook pity upon more than d thousand |
labies of deported women who, in /
passing through, left those they had |
10 milk to feed nor strength to carry |
Is they went on to their lingering |
leaths on the plains below. When |
he local government officials learn |
ID that Moslems had the little ones
hey issued an order that whoever
larbored any Armenian would be |
yisited whit the treatment dealt to
he Armenians.
THE Moslems therefore, secretly |
urned. the little ones over to Chris 1
ian families who cIandestinely cared /
or them until their resources were /
Exhausted. And now the latest infor-
nation from Mardin is that unless
unds are Immediately forthcoming /
he thousand orphans must be turn
ID out upon the streets to starve.
Help must be regular and con-
inuous. The Committee for Armen-
an and Syrian Relief has decided
hat SIS a month per child win be
necessary. That is about IL cents a
ay. Who will add one more child
O his family and reckon the IL cents
long with what he Is spending daily
n his other children and at the end
{ each month send the SIS to the
DIR. Andrus himself narrowly es-
aped execution at the hands Of the
turks because of his work at Mar
in in succoring the suffering. He
7as ordered to be court martialed.
rhich under the conditions. he said.
meant a mock trial and the cutting
If OF the defendants head" The
american embassy, however heard
( the order and interfered so that
. was rescinded and a decree Of exile
ssued instead.
DR.. Andrus, who was bora IN New
'ork city and graduated from VIII
ans college in 1854 and Union 4
- -.s.s.t ...s.rt,,.,.,y IA 1897 nnnnF II