ior, determined upon a ruthless policy of repression, and it was
largely due to efforts to put that policy in force that there resulted
the subsequent massacre of Armenians that shocked the world. It is
difficult for anyone not in possessions of the actual facts to
apportion an exact measure of blame for these bloody reprisals; and in
the following account, it must be remembered, we are compelled at this
juncture to rely almost entirely upon English and Russian, and
therefore biased, information.

The district covered by the massacre, in which it has been said
1,000,000 Armenians (probably a gross exaggeration) were killed, were
Eastern Anatolia, Cilicia, and the Anti-Taurus regions. It is said
that at Marsovan, where there is an American college, the Armenians
early in June were ordered to meet outside the town. They were
surrounded and 1,200 of their number killed by an infuriated mob.
Thousands of the rest were hurled into northern Mesopotamia.

At Bitlis and Mush, in the Lake Van district, it is reported that
12,000 were killed and several Armenian villages entirely wiped out.

As has been pointed out, the Armenians of some districts did not sit
still and wait to be massacred. At Shaben Karahissar in northeastern
Anatolia, within a hundred miles of Trebizond, the Armenian population
held the town for a short time against Turkish troops. Finally they
were overcome and 4,000 are said to have been killed. At Kharput, a
hundred and twenty-five miles southwest of Erzerum, the Armenians held
the town for a whole week, but were finally overcome by troops and
artillery. In many of the districts the able-bodied men of the
Armenian population have been drafted into the labor battalions for
military work at the front and at the bases. The men too old for this
class of work, and yet suspected of agitating against Turkish rule,
were exiled into districts where their powers for harm would be nil.

It must not be assumed because of these accounts that the Turkish
Government gave its unqualified approval of these massacres.
Undoubtedly Talaat Bey adopted a deliberately ruthless policy in
dealing with all cases of actual or suspected revolt. But it is a far
cry from a systematic, intelligent policy of frightfulness to an
indiscriminate massacre.

Protests against these massacres were not confined to the outside
world. Many influential personages in Turkey openly protested, and in
some notable cases conscientious and brave offic