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ARMENIA IN MODERN TIMES 299
and hooligans—afterwards notorious as tyetas—rccruited
from the prisons and clsewhere, were formed under Young
Turk leadership. All the Muhammedan men who had not
already been called up were organized as militia ; and arms
were served out to them—but not to the Christians. The
Kurds, who had been much annoyed by the efforts of the
Young Turks to introduce a regime of law and order which
made their usual looting difficult, were appeased by hints that
the new Sultan would not protect infidels.
By November 21, 19 14, the irreligious Young Turks were
able to proclaim a Jihad, or holy war, which made it a duty to
kili all infidels who refused to embrace the faith of Islam.
This step seems to have been tåken at the request of the
Germans in the hope of raising the Moslems of India and
Africa against their Christian rulers, but it had the effect of
increasing the Turkish hatred of the Christians in Anatolia.
All Christian men between the ages of twenty and forty-three,
and afterwards between the ages of eighteen and forty-eight,
were gradually called up, although only those under twenty
seven were legally liable to service. Those who were incap
able of work had to act as beasts of burden, and between
Mush and Erzerum alone three thousand of them are said to
have succumbed under the weight of their loads.
Accounts of the Turkish persecution and extermination of
the Armenians in Asia Minor, Syria, and Mesopotamia during
the Great War have now been received from many eyewit
nesses—from members of the various American, German,
Swiss, and Danish missions and organizations stationed there,
and above all from the German consuls and officers in Asia
Minor, and the German ambassadors. These accounts and
documents have been collected and published by the well
known German friend of Armenia, Dr. Johannes Lepsius,
in his book entitled Deutschland und Armenien, igi4-igiB,
Sammlung diplotnatischer A.ktenstucke, Potsdam, 1919- The
following narrative is largely based upon these documents,
which may presumably be regarded as reliable. The German
officials would not have wished unnecessarily to blacken their
allies the Turks, and they had no reason to represent the
Armenians as being better than they really were.
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