atrocities during their occupation of
Ardanuten in Transcaucasia, near the Armenian frontier. The Tiflis
correspondent of the "Russkoye Slovo" (the "Russian Word") stated that
at first the Turks confined themselves to pillage and killed only
fifteen civilians, but that after December 30, 1914, when news of the
Russian occupation of Ardaham was received, the local Mussulmans had
organized a systematic massacre. A hundred and fifty Armenians were
led out into the streets and killed.

Fifty Armenians were removed from prisons, stripped naked, and
compelled to leap into the abyss of Jenemdere, the "Devil's Gap,"
until one victim carried a Turk with him, when the remainder were
shot. At Tamvot 250 Armenians were massacred and the women carried
into captivity. The Turks did not permit the burial of the corpses,
which were left to be devoured by dogs till the arrival of the
Russians. Again, it was reported from Urumiah, northwestern Persia,
that prior to the evacuation of towns between Julfa and Tabriz the
Turks and Kurds, who were retiring before the Russian advance,
plundered and burned the villages and put to death some of the
inhabitants. At Salnac, Pagaduk, and Sarna orders were said to have
been given by the Turkish commissioner for the destruction of the
towns. All the Armenian inhabitants of Antvat were collected and,
according to this message, 600 males were put to death, and the women,
after being compelled to embrace the Islamic faith, were divided into
parties and sent to various interior towns.

On March 19, 1915, the Armenian Red Cross fund in London issued some
details supplied by an Armenian doctor named Derderian, who testified
that the whole plain of Alashgerd was virtually covered with the
bodies of men, women, and children. When the Russian forces had
retreated from this district the Kurds fell upon the helpless people
and shut them up in mosques. The men were killed and the women were
carried away to the mountains. The Armenian Red Cross fund stated that
there were 120,000 destitute Armenians in the Caucasus at that time.

As war in itself is not far removed from being a wholesale, organized
atrocity on a large scale, it is always advisable to accept such
accusations with extreme reserve and to consider the probability of
their having been perpetrated. In the case of Turk and Kurd _versus_
Armenian, however--and unfortunately--there is little reason to doubt
even the most gruesome stories that could po