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ARMENIA IN MODERN TIMES 303
plans.1 The latter would in any case have been out of the
question, for they had no arms, and most of the men had been
tåken away to serve in the army.
A few days after the Armenians in Van had dared to defend
themselves against the Turkish onslaught, Tala’at Bey, the
Minister for the Interior, suddenly had all the chief Armenians
in Constantinople arrested on the night before April 2 sth.
Deputies, teachers, writers, doctors, lawyers, editors, and
priests were seized ; on the following night more arrests
were made, and altogether nearly six hundred people were
deported to Asia Minor without inquiry or trial. Tala’at
declared it was merely a temporary measure of precaution—
some of them might be dangerous—and promised that most
of them should speedily be released. Only eight of them
returned after suffering great hardships ; the remainder dis
appeared. Thus all who were capable of pleading the
Armenians’ cause were conveniently put out of the way.
Then the Turks had what they considered the splendid idea
of carrying out the whole plan of extermination as a " necessary
military measure." They would have deportations of all
unreliable elements from the neighbourhood of the front, on
the lines of the German deportations in Belgium and France.
Enver Pasha expounded to Baron Wangenheim, the German
ambassador in Constantinople, his plan for carrying out these
necessary deportations "of all not absolutely trustworthy
families from the rebellious Armenian centres." The
ambassador sent a telegram on May 31, 191 5, to Berlin,
reporting the project, and saying that Enver " earnestly begs
us not to prevent him. . . . These measures will certainly
involve great hardship for the Armenian population. I am,
however, of the opinion that we can alleviate them in practice
though we cannot prevent them in principle. . . ." He
still believed in the Turkish accounts of the treacherous
Armenian agitation, supported by Russia, v/hich " threatened
the existence "of Turkey. It was not until a later date that
he, too, discovered that these accusations were baseless.
Then, in June 191 5, the horrors began to which wc know
no parallel in history. From all the villages and towns of
Cf. J. Lepsius, op. eit., p.l xx f.
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