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ARMENIA AND THE NEAR EAST
302
Armenians a Russian army was approaching ; and its outposts
arrived on May 1 8th quite unaware ofwhat had been happening,
as the Armenians had not been in touch with them.
According to the Armenian computation twelve thousand
shells were fired at the town, but with very little efFect. On
the Armenian side there were only eighteen killed, but many
wounded, and the Turkish losses were probably about the
same. When the Russian army shortly afterwards (July 3 ist)
retired northwards for a time, the whole Armenian population
of the Vilayet of Van, numbering nearly 200,000, fled to
Russian Armenia.
This attempt of the Armenians to defend themselves against
the Turkish attack in Van was promptly misrepresented in a
communiqué which was sent by Enver Pasha and the Turkish
Government to Berlin, and thence spread all over the world,
as an attack by bands of Armenian insurrectionists who, in
the rear of the Turkish army, had fallen upon the Muhammedan
population. Out of 180,000 Moslems in the Vilayet of Van
only 30,000 had succeeded in escaping ! In a later report
issued by the Turkish embassy in Berlin on October 1, 191 5,
the story was further embellished : "No fewer than 180,000
Moslems had been killed. It was not surprising that the
Moslems had tåken vengeance for this." Some eighteen
Turks, answering to the number of Armenians they had
killed ’in Van, had turned into 180,000 ! This astonishingly
impudent lie has a kind of foundation. According to statistics
there should be 180,000 Moslems, including 30,000 Turks
and 150,000 Kurds, in the Vilayet of Van. The Turks fled
westwards when the Russian army advanced, while the 1 50,000
Kurds remained where they were, and were molested neither
by the Russians nor the Armenians.
The whole episode is a typical example of the way the
Turks treated the Armenians and tried to pretend that the
Armenians were rebels and traitors. The other " proofs "
of Armenian guilt produced by the Young Turkish Govern
ment in order to justify themselves are of the same kind. The
reports of Germany’s consuls in Asia Minor and ambassadors
in Constantinople show quite clearly that there is no proof
whatever of Armenian treachery, or that they had any insurrectionist
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