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ARMENIA AXD THE NEAR EAST
306
deportations and had the Armenians massacred without
further ado, as, for instance, in Nisibin (July ist), Bitlis
(July ist), MushQuly ioth), Malatia (July ijth),Urfa (August
icjth and October i6th), Jesire’,’ (September 2nd), Diarbekr,
Midiat, etc. This was at least more merciful than the
unspeakable sufferings entailed by the other method. On
June io, 191 5, the German consul at Mosul telegraphed that
614 Armenian men, women, and children, sent down the
Tigris by raft from Diarbekr, had been butchered : only empty
rafts had arrived at Mosul, the river was full of corpses and
human limbs, and several other transports of the same kind
were on the way. On the iBth of June the German consul
at Erzerum reported massacres near the garrison town of
Erzinjan : Government troops of the 86th cavalry brigade,
aided by their officers and some Kurds, had butchered between
20,000 and 25,000 deported women and children in the
Kemekh gorge. In the town of Bitlis most of the Armenians
were massacred : 900 women and children were carried off
and drowned in the Tigris. And so it went on—a never
ending tale of the most disgusting cruelties. In some cases
the Christians were burnt in their houses. The Armenian
soldiers who had fought so bravely in the Turkish anny that
even Enver Pasha had to compliment them publicly on their
bravery and loyalty were afterwards disarmed, set to hard
labour behind the front, and ultimately shot by their comrades
and by command of their own officers.
As soon as the German consular reports showed what the
" deportations " really meant, the German ambassadors
handed the Sublime Porte a series of vigorous notes of protest,
but without result. The Turkish leaders partly denied the
facts, and partly gave it pretty clearly to be understood that
they did not consider their allies competent to instruct them
in humanity. Tala’at Bey cynically remarked to Count
Metternich, the German ambassador, on December 18, 191 5,
that he was sure that the Germans would have done the same
thing in the like circumstances. For the rest, the Porte
deprecated German interference in their domestic concerns.
The German Government’s efforts to put a stop to the
atrocities came to nothing. But although the German
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