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ARMENIA IN MODERN TIMES 287
In the end the consular officers also v/ent to Sassun,
and made it clear that the Armenian population were not to
blame.
After this, when Great Britain and the Powers demanded,
on May 11, 1895, security against a recurrence of these
atrocities, and set forth definite reforms which must be made
in order to safeguard the Christians, the Sultan merely pro
tracted the negotiations by refusing to admit any guilt, by
making a counter-proposal of sixteen articles, and by pro
claiming an amnesty for all suspicious {sic !) Armenians, while
in secret he rewarded and promoted the instigators and
leaders of the massacres.
This was too much for Gladstone, the aged champion of
liberty ; though bowed by the weight of his eighty-six years,
he stood up and made a flaming speech at a meeting in Chester
against " the great criminal in the palace," the enthroned
murderer, declaring that if Great Britain, Russia, and
France, with influence and power fifty times as great as
Turkey’s, and with definite obligations in this matter, wrere to
give in now to the Sultan, they would cover themselves with
shame in the eyes of the world. The meeting, like so many
others, ended in—a resolution.
Abdul Hamid listened attentively, and soon understood that
once again things would not go farther than words and paper.
He could safely go on with his plans. So while His Persecuted
Innocence complained to the Pope of the English accusations,
and the Pope tried to mollify England, the authorities in
Anatolia received a hint that they had better be prepared to
step in and protect the Moslem population against the Chris
tians, who were planning a rising. The whole Armenian
population must therefore be searched, and all weapons, even
knives, tåken from them.
The Armenians soon began to see what was in the wind,
and it was with fear in their hearts that they handed over the
few feeble weapons which they had in their possession, and
which the authorities handed on later to the Moslems to
murder the Christians with. Many of them were subjected
to the most barbarous tortures to make them tell where
weapons were hidden, or betray the revolutionary associations
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