Chapter 2: Deportations and Acts of Annihilation

Deportations in great numbers and obviously according to a central plan began in May 1915. In the beginning, apart from the intellectuals in the capital city of Constantinople and the supposedly insurgent people in Zeitun and towns along the Mediterranean coast, they mainly befell the Armenians in the east near the Russian front. From the very beginning, acts of annihilation were carried out alongside the deportations, such as in the plains of Mush, the Erzerum plateau, in the town of Trebizond and in the area surrounding Erzindjan. Furthermore, a Vali (Reschid Bey) in Vilayet Diarbekir, called “ ;bloodhound” by the German diplomats, carried out acts of extermination against the Armenians in a war of annihilation against Christians of all denominations. Insofar as the deported reached their area of destination at all, these were to be found south of Aleppo, but especially along the river Euphrates in the Syrian desert. Apart from the deportation and annihilation of the Armenians, conversions to Islam were carried out by force or under great pressure. Despite German protests, not only the Gregorian, but also the Catholic and the Protestant Armenians were deported and annihilated.

(I) 24 April 1915

All over the world, Armenians remember the genocide of 1915/16 on 24 April. On that day in the year 1915, the Ottoman government had all Armenian intellectuals of any importance arrested and sent to the interior. Only a few of those arrested survived. In German sources, this annihilation of the Armenian elite is mentioned in only a few documents.

On 30 April 1915, Ambassador Hans Baron von Wangenheim reported on the arrest of the Armenian elite:

During the night from Saturday to Sunday, 25^th inst., and from Sunday to Monday, 26^th inst., numerous arrests of Armenians have taken place here. Altogether around 500 persons from all classes of society are said to have been arrested, including doctors, journalists, authors, clergymen, also some deputies. The offices of the newspaper Azadamart , a body of the Daschnakzutiun party, to which many of those arrested belong, were closed down by the authorities. During the following days, most of them were deported to the interior of Asia Minor. [1915-04-30-DE-002]

Talaat justified the arrests as follows to the first dragoman from the German embassy:

Among the local Armenians there were a number of personalities who were politically not quite safe; these were, of course, to be found in particular among the members of the clubs and editorial offices. The fear that in case of an unfavourable change in the war, these elements could take the opportunity for stirring up trouble, was not to be overlooked. The time seemed favourable for removing all these suspects from the capital. Many people would definitely be among the deportees who were by no means guilty. The government would not deny this and he - Talaat – would grant permission for these to return of his own accord and without needing any special intervention. Talaat Bey declared that the claim that there was evidence available of a coup being planned for the day of the Coronation festivities was incorrect. [1915-04-30-DE-002]

The German Protestant Christians described the events in a petition to the Imperial Chancellor as follows:

The measures were thereby so implemented that in the main city and in the centres inland, the leaders of the population, intellectuals, notabilities and church dignitaries were thrown into prison overnight and without interrogation and court proceedings either shot or deported. [1915-11-10-DE-011]

The German journalist, von Tyszka, reports from Constantinople on the fate of the Armenian elite:

all Armenians in Ajasch, west of Angora, had been murdered, according to comments expressed by the police administrator in Constantinople, Bedri Bey, to a well-known Turkish civil servant. [1915-10-01-DE-001]

A few days later, Ambassador Wangenheim reports on the Armenians banned and the Armenian doctor, Tschilinguirian, about whom he had had enquiries made because of his German wife:

Originally, he was to have been sent to Ayasch near Angora, where those personalities who were more heavily incriminated were accommodated and some were kept in detention; at our intercession he was interned in Changri (Kiangri) where those banned were able to move about freely and carry out their profession. [1915-10-05-DE-011]

(II) The Geographical Expansion of the Deportations

Both the period when the deportation of the Armenians in great numbers began as well as the forms it took varied from region to region. The first to be deported after the Armenians from Zeitun were the Armenians from the provinces close to the Russian border and those on the coast of the eastern Mediterranean which was controlled by the Entente fleet. In detail, Erzerum and its surroundings, the plains of Mush (on which over one hundred purely Armenians villages were to be found) as well as the area around Bitlis were affected; furthermore, the coastal strip on the Black Sea, especially Trebizond. But very soon the deportations were expanded to those regions which were not situated near the front, until finally the Armenians from all regions were deported or threatened with deportation. Local conditions were a further factor for the regional expansion of the deportations, on the one hand due to the presence of Turkish agitators, and on the other hand Ottoman officials who opposed the deportations or at least wished that they be carried out more humanely.

Erzerum was the largest town close to the Russian border, where the organisers of the genocide as well as Turkish military and police chiefs in favour of deportation were staying. German reports well verify the deportations in the north-east, because Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter, the Vice-Consul and administrator in Erzerum (Anders, the German consul, had been taken a prisoner of war by the Russians), was an attentive observer.

Scheubner-Richter reporting on the countryside around Erzerum:

I personally saw deserted Armenian villages which had been plundered; the same applies to the Monastery of Kizilwang. The monastery church had been ravaged. [1915-06-02-DE-012]

Directly from the town the Vice-Consul reports:

The measures adopted by the government have been limited up to now to searching houses and arresting people. The majority of the arrested persons has been set free and some of them are said to have been sent to the inner parts of the country. [1915-05-15-DE-012]

On the very same day he reports to his embassy:

The Armenian population from the surrounding villages is being deported … this greatly upsets the population. [1915-05-15-DE-013]

A day later, Scheubner-Richter send a telegram saying it was

mainly women and children who were driven away, whereby they had to leave their possessions behind. [1915-05-16-DE-011]

Two days later he cables once again:

The misery of the deported Armenians is dreadful. Thousands of women and children are camped around the town without food. The pointless measure of deportation gives rise to the greatest rage. [1915-05-18-DE-012]

The German Lieutenant Colonel, Stange, also situated in Erzerum, gives an account of the evacuation of the area around Erzerum in a later report:

The deportation of the Armenians began around the middle of May 1915. … These were carried out by the Turkish organs in the most brutal manner; the copy of a letter written by the Armenian villagers and addressed to their Bishop provides evidence about it: the people were driven from their homes, farms and fields within the shortest possible space of time and herded together. A large number of them were not even given the time by the gendarmes to pack the barest necessities to take with them. [1915-08-23-DE-013]

Concerning the deportations in Erzerum, Stange writes:

At the beginning of June, the deportation of the Armenians from the city of Erserum began. The manner in which this was carried out by governmental and police authorities and their organs was devoid of any kind of organisation and discipline. [1915-08-23-DE-013]

Deportations also began in other regions. The deportations in Cilicia were observed by three German consuls. In the middle of May, Consul Eugen Buege writes from Adana:

The whole Armenian population in the Vilayet Adana is extremely frightened due to the procedure of the government. Hundreds of families are being exiled, the prisons are overfilled and again early this morning several people were executed. [1915-05-18-DE-011]

Consul Roessler:

I have discovered from a completely reliable source that the number of Armenian families who have been banned until now from Sandschak Marash and the eastern part of Vilayet Adana amounts to 2000, i.e. 10000 persons. [1915-05-26-DE-012]

At this time, the deportations from Zeitun and the surrounding villages had already been completed. Consul Walter Roessler from Aleppo, whose area of responsibility includes Zeitun, reports in the middle of June:

Zeitun and the surrounding area as well as Alabasch, Elbistan, Dörtjol, Hassanbeïli have been completely cleared out. Not only have those families been banned who are not completely irreproachable, but also the entire population. [1915-06-12-DE-013]

Ambassador Wangenheim:

According to the reliable information issued by the Catholicos of Sis up to now 30000 Armenians have been deported from his diocese alone. Zeitun and surrounding areas, Elbistan, Dörtyol, Alabasch, Hassanbeïli and even some smaller places have been completely cleared. ... The exiles are forced to leave their homes either immediately or within a few days so that they have to relinquish their houses and a large part of their movable possessions. They are not even able to provide themselves with the necessary supplies for their transportation. [1915-06-17-DE-003]

Apart from diplomats, those Germans also give reports whose statements have been taken down by the diplomats, even though they are not members of the diplomatic corps. Consul General Johann Heinrich Hermann Mordtmann, responsible for the Armenian matters at the embassy in Constantinople, had a conversation with the Swedish sister of the German Christian Charity-Organisation for the Orient in Mush, Alma Johansson, who had travelled to Kharput after being expelled from Mush. The German Reich had no consular representation in either Mush or Kharput.

Sister Alma, likewise, gave a detailed account of the decimation of the Armenians in Harput. The persecutions had already begun in May. [1915-11-06-DE-012]

The preacher from the German Christian Charity-Organisation for the Orient and head of the orphanage, Johannes Ehmann, reports regularly from Charput and as a rule his observations were passed on by the German embassy to Berlin. At the end of June Ehmann reports:

After all the suffering in the past, deportation has now been ordered indiscriminately for the entire Christian population in the towns and country. [1915-06-26-DE-014]

The German consuls in other parts of the country also reported on deportations. Vice-Consul Walter Holstein sent a telegram from Mossul:

Conditions in the districts of Mardin Amadia have turned into a real persecution of the Christians. This is undoubtedly the government’s fault. [1915-06-13-DE-011]

The German Reich was represented on the coast of the Black Sea by Consul Heinrich Bergfeld (in Trebizond) and Consul M. Kuckhoff (in Samsun). Consul Bergfeld reports from Trebizond:

The order was announced today that Armenians, including women and children, had to depart within five days. Their possessions will be taken into the care of the authorities. Only the sick may remain. [1915-06-25-DE-013]

Two days later he reports:

Alone in the Vilayet of Trapezunt about 30000 persons are affected by the deportations. [1915-06-27-DE-013]

Again two days later:

Armenian families have been ordered to have themselves ready for departure tomorrow evening. [1915-06-29-DE-017]

Bergfeld summarises in a longer letter:

On 24^th June the local leaders of the Armenian committee were arrested and exiled to the interior of the country via Samsum. The same day I heard that the deportation of all Armenians was being considered and that there was a trend towards using this occasion to instigate excesses against the local Armenians. ... On 26^th June the Armenians were then told to prepare themselves for deportation into the interior of the country with only 5 days’ notice. Only the sick were allowed to stay behind and accommodation was planned for them in hospitals. ... The deportation from the town of Trapezunt and the immediate vicinity has been completed. Some cases of suicide and a case of arson were registered. Other occurrences have not been recorded. [1915-07-09-DE-002]

Ambassador Wangenheim adds to the report:

Only the sick were excepted; later an exception was granted for widows, orphans, old people and children under the age of five years, also for the sick and for Catholic Armenians. According to the latest reports, however, most of the exceptions were revoked once again and only children and those who were not transportable, remained behind, the latter were brought into hospitals. [1915-07-07-DE-001]

In violation of the strict rules of observation for professional diplomats, the elected Vice-Consul, Kuckhoff, also reported from Samsun in June:

due to general conspiracy and treason as well as devastation of some towns in anatolia and killing of their muslim population, government imposed deportation of entire armenian population to mesopotamia in five days’ time to enable them to settle their affairs in the town [1915-06-27-DE-011]

A short while later, Kuckhoff attempted to qualify his statements:

The main reason for these measures is said to have been the seizure of the town of Wan on the part of the Armenians and the declaration of independence of the same, as well as the destruction of Schabin-Karahissar (Vilayet Sivas). Allegedly, the revolutionaries in both places have murdered the entire Muslim population, [1915-07-16-DE-003]

Finally, Kuckhoff returned to his duty merely to observe and reported:

All Armenians without exception: men, women, the old, children, even babies, the Orthodox, Protestants and Catholics - the latter never took part in any national revolutionary movement and were also spared by Hamid - had to leave. No Christian Armenian is allowed to stay here; not even those of foreign nationality; the latter are to be expelled from the country. [1915-07-16-DE-003]

In July, Wangenheim reports for the first time on the increasing extent of the deportations:

The expulsion and resettlement of the Armenian people was limited until 14 days ago to the provinces nearest to the eastern theatre of war and to certain areas in the province of Adana; since then the Porte has resolved to extend these measures also to the provinces of Trapezunt, Mamuret-ul-Aziz and Siwas and had begun with these measures even though these parts of the country are not threatened by any enemy invasion for the time being. [1915-07-07-DE-001]

The German Protestant Christians report in a petition to the Imperial Chancellor that

since the end of May, the deportation of the entire Armenian population has been ordered from all the Anatolian Vilayets and Cilicia in the Arabian steppe south of the Baghdad railway. [1915-11-10-DE-011]

At this point, the deportations from the areas close to the front had already been completed. Scheubner-Richter reported from Erzerum:

Thus, by July 15 almost all of the Armenians had been expelled from Erserum. ... there are no more Armenians in the administrative district of the local consulate. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

A short while later, the German Red Cross doctor, Neukirch, also reported from Erzindjan:

For the present, the Armenian question is finished in Erzindjan. There are no native Armenians left here with the exception of a few craftsmen, kept behind by the government. [1915-11-06-DE-011]

A report by Scheubner-Richter lets one guess what had happened in the meantime in eastern Turkey. In November 1915, he rode from his official residence in Erzerum through the east to Mossul:

On the journey from Erzerum to Mossul via Khinis, Musch, Bitlis and Seert, all the villages and homes I came across, all of which used to be inhabited by Armenians, were found to be totally empty and destroyed. … According to statements given by Kurds, all Armenians in the area around here had been murdered. [1915-11-09-DE-011]

Those Turks who were responsible deported the Armenian population even from the furthest western region. Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Wangenheim’s deputy, reports:

the authorities had recently begun resettling the Armenian inhabitants of various locations in the area surrounding Izmit (Nikomedien), i.e. in the immediate vicinity of the capital, because they allegedly wanted to support a Russian landing on the mouth of the Sakaria. [1915-08-12-DE-001]

Even Consul Roessler now suspected:

The government … also wishes to annihilate the Armenians in the west. [1915-08-15-DE-012]

The German journalist, Rudolf Zabel, from the Tägliche Rundschau gives a very detailed description of the trains running from western Anatolia into the valley of the Euphrates. Mordtmann recorded his accounts:

The transports are first directed to Konia where there is a fairly large concentration camp; …The accommodation and catering for the deportees is bad. There is a high death rate. In Eregli there is a large camp (approx.. 3000 people); it appears that those who have travelled by train are accommodated there as the people still had a lot of belongings with them; there is also a high death rate in this camp. …In E. five railway trains arrive each day, each with 1000 - 1500 Armenians; Mr. Zabel has seen 8000 moving along on foot. Ulukirchla is one of the worst stations. The camp there was formerly occupied by labour battalions, is infested with refuse, insects etc. The conditions for the deportees there is very wretched. Beyond Ulukirchla there is no more transport by train. The deportees are herded on in individual groups like cattle. … In Bozanti, the next station, there is neither accommodation nor bread; from there it is another 10 kms without a break to a refugee camp along the military supply and communication route. … In Adana the emigrants arrive completely exhausted. The military route Adana - Osmanié - Hamidé is now only passed along on foot; the camps (in the open air) are in a terrible condition. … In Kubla there is another large camp where, amongst other, the Armenians from Dörtjol are accommodated. [1915-08-21-DE-011].

At the end of October, Vice-Consul Hoffman writes from Aleppo:

the evictions had spread to the Armenian population of the whole of Anatolia, as far as the outskirts of Constantinople and Smyrna. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

The German journalist, von Tyszka, confirmed these deportations of the Armenians from almost all of the regions:

It is understandable for the Turks not to trust the Armenians who were living near the Russian border, but why did they deport with the same harshness those living in areas far from the border, such as from Jalova, Angora, Brussa and Kastamuni? [1915-10-01-DE-001]

In the meantime, the Armenians had even been driven out of the European part of Turkey, as is evident from a later report by Ambassador Wolff-Metternich:

There are probably only a very few left in the European part of Turkey after the Armenian population in the larger cities and towns in the interior was sent to Anatolia during the past few months. [1915-12-27-DE-002]

Consul Buege reports from Kilikien that the deportations have not only been expanded, but are also being carried out more vigorously:

Measures against the Armenians have been tightened: widows, orphans and soldiers’ families, even the sick and the blind are to leave immediately! [1915-09-13-DE-011]

Roessler:

Incidentally, the deportations are continuing in the most vigorous manner and with the most terrible results. [1915-11-08-DE-001]

For various reasons, not all of the Armenians were affected by the first waves of deportation. At the beginning of 1916, a second wave of deportation took place.

Roessler reported the following on the city of Aintab:

After the deportations which took place some months ago there were still seven to eight thousand Armenians left in Aintab. Of these, 5 to 6000 have already been or are in the process of being deported, irregardless of their denomination. [1916-01-03-DE-011]

In Marash as well, a larger colony of Armenians had also survived the first deportations. Roessler now reports:

On 19th April it became known here that the order had been given to likewise deport those 9000 Armenians in Marash who had been spared up until then and were the remainder of formerly 24000. During the first exile campaign, these people had sold their only belongings while carrying out the order to get ready to go on the road and since then have been severely weakened by deprivation. [1916-04-27-DE-001]

The Swiss nun in German service, Beatrice Rohner, reports that her colleague, Paula Schaefer, is responsible for

the railway line from Osmanie to Islahiye and the plains south of Marash, on which smaller and larger camps of dispersed Armenians left behind can be found everywhere. In Marash itself, there is dreadful poverty and hardship among the approx. 7000 Armenians left behind there. [1916-04-28-DE-002]

A few weeks later Roessler writes:

The deportation of the 9000 left behind in Marash is in full swing. [1916-06-17-DE-001]

Wolff-Metternich adds:

In Marasch not even the families were spared who had formerly been granted special permits by the Minister of the Interior. [1916-07-10-DE-001]

Paula Schaefer, the German sister stationed in Marash, reports:

I am still quite miserable from the journey I made with the deportees from Baghtsche to Marasch! I met all these crowds of people in the mountains – children 4 weeks of age lay under the bushes, 3 – 4 year olds were sitting on the rocks – abandoned – without one piece of bread, their mothers had to leave them there – as they themselves could not go on! We could hardly progress due to the stench of corpses – we rode along for many hours - where 100 - 150 bodies lay … Those poor people were not even allowed to buy one drink of water for 1 Ltq. – the thousands were camped by dirty sewage water which came from the town of Marasch, although the Aksu was only 5 minutes away. They were forced to drink this water by which they were camped! ... I went down to the plain, visited the people in their camps – it was terrible to hear what had been done to them en route. [1916-07-29-DE-001]

In October 1916, Roessler reports on Marash one last time:

In Marash, where there were about 4000 Armenians left from 25000, new deportations are again being carried out on Talaat Bey’s orders. [1916-10-02-DE-002]

New phases of deportation were also carried out in towns further into the interior of Anatolia. Pastor Ernst Jacob Christoffel reported:

that he had met the last Christian Armenians in Eregli; from there to Siwas the Armenians had been completely cleared away, "either deported, or converted or murdered.” [1916-07-10-DE-001]

Ambassador Wolff-Metternich adds:

In Angora the Vali, Reschid Bey, well-known for his deeds in Diarbekir, is engaged in tracing the last Armenians (solely Catholics) and expelling them. [1916-07-10-DE-001]

Wolff-Metternich summarises:

The Turkish government ... is now about to dissolve and disperse the last groups of Armenians who have survived the deportations. These include Armenians who remained in northern Syria (Marasch, Aleppo, Ras-ul-Ain) as well as in some larger places in Asia Minor (Angora, Konia), especially those who had been deported there or had emigrated there earlier. [1916-07-10-DE-001]

Roessler adds:

According to news reaching us from all sides, the persecution of the Armenians is continuing unabatingly and inexorably. [1916-07-29-DE-001]

Aleppo was the most important town in southern East Anatolia, with an important minority of Armenians, and for a long time it was the most important through town for the caravans of the deported.

Consul Roessler:

The number of deaths among the deported has risen rapidly since the beginning of September, where the daily average was 25, to 40, 60 and more by the middle of September. [Footnote: On the 26^th of this month there were 110 dead; on the 27^th of this month there were 95. Not a day has passed since the middle of September where there were less than 80.] [1915-09-27-DE-014]

Vice-Consul Hoffmann reports from Aleppo:

Yesterday orders given to clear town of deportees (20000) within 14 days. ... According to statements made by the director of political affairs in the Vilayets, 40000 are concentrated at Katma and Radju, further suspects from West, Middle and North Anatolia are approaching; 300000 are being sent on to the South for "re-settlement" (Rakka, Derzor, Western Hauran). [1915-10-18-DE-011]

Roessler some weeks later:

The death rate is extraordinarily high among the expelled in the city of Aleppo. ... The number of deaths reported every day amounts to between 150 and 200. [1915-11-08-DE-001]

At the beginning of 1916, Consul Roessler reports from his seat of office that the Armenians in his town will also be deported, even though the Armenians not born in Aleppo will be sent first:

Armenians from Aintab who have already been living here for 3 or 4 years are required to leave Aleppo within a week. [1916-01-10-DE-011]

Shortly afterwards, Roessler states more precisely:

Orders have been given to deport every Armenian who is not in the possession of Identity Papers (“Teskere Nufus”) issued in Aleppo, without taking into consideration the time already spent in Aleppo. Only those issued there are valid proof that the holder is not among the deportees. Therefore, if an Armenian came, for example, to Aleppo ten years ago from another Turkish town to settle there and holds a Teskere Nufus from the other town, without having had reason to exchange it for a local one, then he is doomed to deportation. With this order the Government possesses an effective weapon with which to deport the majority of the local Armenians. Only those born here are safe, as long as they are registered with the authorities, something, which is commonly known, is not the case throughout among Ottoman subjects. [1916-01-26-DE-001]

In April 1916 Roessler writes:

In Aleppo, in March and the first half of April, not only were the Armenians who had come from elsewhere and were in hiding here, severely hunted down, but also the deportation of those Armenians who were living here was begun. ... Since the 18^th April, some peace has set in in Aleppo and it seems that this was due to the intervention of the Imperial Embassy. This induced the Minister of the Interior to give the order to the local authorities not to deport local residents, nor Catholics and Protestants. [1916-04-27-DE-001]

Beatrice Rohner reports that in Aleppo there were

still approx. 4000 deported Armenians hiding as refugees. They flee from the police from one house, one quarter to another and eke out a miserable existence. They are being clandestinely supported by the chairmen of their parish councils. [1916-04-28-DE-002]

According to Roessler, the Vali of Aleppo gave the following explanation for weapons supposedly found in Aleppo:

Because of these events, Djemal Pascha then gave orders to evacuate Marash completely and to send without exception all those deportees further on who came from elsewhere and were staying in Aleppo. Those Armenians who resided in Aleppo were to be excepted, because they were, in fact, innocent. [1916-05-12-DE-011]

Roessler adds that it remains to be seen just how far the term ”resided in Aleppo“ will be qualified. Roessler then goes on:

Since the day before yesterday, the permits are being taken away of even those people with a special Resident’s Permit. Apparently an announcement is being printed that all those named are to leave Aleppo within a few days; anyone disobeying this order will be shot. [1916-06-05-DE-011]

Consul Loytved-Hardegg from Damaskus gives an explanation for the situation in Aleppo:

In my interviews with him, Djemal Pasha informed me that he will no longer deport those Armenians whom he has given Residents’ Permits for Aleppo. He is being forced to deport the remaining Armenians who immigrated there, because they had set up a secret action committee in Aleppo against the Turkish government. [Note on this from Mordtmann: Beatrice Rohner wrote]: “I recently had another meeting with him (the Wali); he had promised to give me some Resident’s Permits for several new assistants who were to be employed, but then he regressed on his word, saying that he had received an order from Djemal Pasha not to leave one single Armenian in Aleppo who had come from elsewhere. [1916-06-11-DE-011]

Beatrice Rohner:

Here in Aleppo there are several (4 – 5000) Armenians from elsewhere who eke out a miserable existence, constantly running from the police. Again and again they were chased away, some of them brought to the deportation camp outside the town, from which they constantly escaped again. Naturally, thousands were deported. [1916-06-17-DE-001]

Roessler a good week later:

Since 19 June, the ruthless deportation from Aleppo has begun again. Pretext: these are sanitary measures or political suspects. Even those who have resided here for a long time have been deported. [1916-06-27-DE-011]

Roessler later gives an estimate on the number of deportations:

The number of Armenians from elsewhere whose deportation is directly at hand amounts to over 8000. In addition, the American consul estimates the number of people residing here who are in great danger of being deported to be about 15 thousand. [1916-08-08-DE-011]

Finally, in August 1916, Roessler reports the beginning of the deportations from Aleppo:

On 12 August, the first 200 persons were deported. Others will follow. [1916-08-13-DE-001]

There were no further reports on deportations from Aleppo. There are only assumptions as to the reasons for this. Roessler had reported previously:

Since 12 July, the deportations have stopped in Aleppo, because it seems that a conflict has broken out between the higher authorities over the fact that richer Armenians have succeeded in gaining exemption, whereas the poorer of them have been handed over to the police. [1916-07-29-DE-001]

Roessler had reported a year previously from Kilikien on attempts by the Armenians to buy their exemption from the deportations:

Strictly confidentially I have been asked by the Armenian side whether the towns of Aintab, Marasch, Adana and [indecipherable] can be spared for a contribution of 10000 Turkish pounds each. They have also requested that, if measures to be taken against them are unavoidable, they be allowed to emigrate instead of being deported. [1915-07-30-DE-011]

From this time on, the German reports from Aleppo were mainly concerned with the care of the uprooted Armenians, mainly the orphans. In March 1917, Roessler makes another reference to the extent of the relief work and, referring to those requiring care in Aleppo, speaks of

20000 needy. [1917-03-15-DE-012]

The capital city of Constantinople is also a special case, as is the most important harbour city of Smyrna. Already after the deportations from the town of Izmit, situated near the capital city, the Ambassador on Extraordinary Mission, Hohenlohe-Langenburg, had drawn attention to the consequences for Constantinople:

This measure caused severe distress among the local Armenian population and people believed that upon completion of the Bairam festivities beginning today the local Armenians would also be deported. Due to the large number of Armenians residing here (80000 people according to lowest estimations), carrying out such a measure would not only have greatly disrupted doings and dealings, but would also have severely endangered the life and property of the non-Mohammedan residents, foreigners not excluded … Talaat Bey … ensured me upon my inquiry that the Armenians of Constantinople were not to be deported.
This measure evoked serious concern among the local Armenian people and rumours were going around that after the end of the Bairam festival, which begins today, the local Armenians would also be expelled. In view of the large number of Armenians living here (according to the latest estimations a minimum of 80000 people) the realisation of these plans would not only lead to severe disruptions in trade and commerce, but would also seriously endanger the lives and possessions of the non-Muslim population, not excluding foreigners. ... Talaat Bey ... assured me upon my enquiry that there was no intention of deporting the Armenians living in Constantinople. [1915-08-12-DE-001]

Neurath, the Chargé d’Affaires appointed after the death of Wangenheim, added:

Based on the news that the Turkish government has recently planned to deport the Armenians in Constantinople as well, I had an interview today with Halil Bey and pointed out to him once again the danger of such an action and the great damage of an economic nature. Halil Bey stated that the Council of Ministers had already decided to refrain from all further deportations of Armenians, particularly those in Constantinople. [1915-11-08-DE-011]

But only four days later Neurath warned:

I have learned from reliable sources that the Turkish government has decided, despite all assurances to the contrary, to deport those Armenians residing in Constantinople as well. [1915-11-12-DE-001]

At this point, even the Secretary of State of the German Foreign Office, Jagow, became involved. He cabled to his ambassador that the Turkish government was said to have

now also begun deporting the Armenians from Constantinople, contrary to earlier promises. Supposedly, 10000 have already been deported and most of them were killed in the Ismid Mountains. A proscription list of more than 70000 was prepared. Should this report be accurate, request that emphatic interviews be carried out. [1915-12-05-DE-011]

The new ambassador, Wolff-Metternich, confirmed the fears of his predecessor and reported to Bethmann Hollweg:

I have learned from a very trustworthy source that according to information provided by the local Chief of Police, which I beg to keep secret, lately about 4000 Armenians also from Constantinople have been deported to Anatolia and that the remaining 80000 Armenians still living in Constantinople are to be gradually cleared away, 30000 having already been deported during the summer and a further 30000 having fled. [1915-12-07-DE-001]

Despite the Germans’ fears, the majority of the Armenians residing in Constantinople were spared from deportation. It is not clear from the files whether this was due to the intervention of the Germans or for other reasons.

It was a different matter in the case of the important harbour town of Smyrna . Here, the intervention of a German general definitely saved the Armenians from being deported.

Chargé d’Affaires Radowitz sent a telegram to Berlin in November 1916:

As the Imperial Consul in Smyrna has reported, the authorities there have begun with the deportation of the Armenian population. ... As a result of this, on the 8th inst., a number of arrests were made and the next day 300 Armenians were deported by train, irrespective of age and gender. Other transportations are to follow. The deportation is being organised by the Chief of Police in Smyrna, whom the Vali has given a free hand. ... Marshal Liman von Sanders, who is at present in Smyrna, has pointed out to the Vali that these mass deportations are damaging as far as military considerations are involved and he would therefore not tolerate any more arrests and deportations. ... I regard it as quite out of the question that this order can be rescinded by protests to the Sublime Porte and must fear that in the not too distant future they will also begin with the deportation of the local Armenians here. ... As far as I could make out, the number of Armenians living in Smyrna is about 6 – 7000, including the richest people in the town, but also individual bad characters. [1916-11-13-DE-001]

The German diplomat was to be proven wrong, for the German general finally succeeded. Liman von Sanders on the deportation of the Armenians in Smyrna:

It was confirmed to me that several hundred Armenians had been arrested by the police - partly in the roughest manner, by fetching old women and sick children out of their beds in the night - and had been taken straight to the train station. Two trains full of Armenians had been transported away. ... On the morning of 10 November I sent the Chief of Staff of the 5^th Army, Colonel Kiasim Bey, to the Vali and had it said to him that I would no longer tolerate such mass arrests and transportations which in many ways intervened in military matters in a town threatened by the enemy. Should the police nevertheless continue with these acts, I would make the troops under my control prevent them by force of arms. ... Around 1.30 in the afternoon Major Kiasim Bey arrived back from the Vali ... and informed me that the arrests and transportations had been stopped and would be discontinued. [1916-11-17-DE-001]

Kuehlmann, the Ambassador on Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople, reported this enforcement shortly thereafter:

In the meantime, the deportations of Armenians in Smyrna have been adjourned. [1916-11-25-DE-001]

The retreat of the Russians from the Ottoman Empire after the October Revolution in Russia led to a completely new situation in world politics. Germany strived for a peace treaty with the Bolshevists. For this reasons, deportations of Russian Armenians or those Armenians who had been under Russian protection until that time were to be prevented.

In case of new deportations, Kuehlmann, the Secretary of State of the German Foreign Office, instructed the ambassador in Constantinople,

to urgently advise against carrying these out. … A sharp and definite denial is requested, because there is a fear of adverse influence on Russian negotiations. Insofar as the removal of individual Armenians is unavoidable for military reasons, it is urgently recommended that they be accommodated in Anatolia rather than Mesopotamia, and that they be treated well during transport. [1917-12-10-DE-001]

Ambassador Bernstorff cabled back:

Talaat Pasha requests that talk of new deportations of Armenians be categorically denied. [1917-12-11-DE-001]

Kuehlmann also asked his ambassador in Constantinople to intervene with the Turkish government in case of renewed deportations of Armenians from Anatolia,

so that the allegedly planned new deportations of Armenians from Konia and Aleppo and the surrounding area cease. Please request the government there to determine whether the deportation plan … actually exists. [1917-12-10-DE-001]

One of Talaat’s statements, repeated by Ambassador Bernstorff, fits rather better under the heading of cynicism:

The Grand Vizier added confidentially that he planned to publish a general pardon and amnesty for Armenia as well as an appropriation of funds, should a separate peace be reached with Russia. Each deportee or captive Armenian would be free to go wherever they want to, and would receive financial support. He, Talaat Pascha, had already discussed the question of financing with Djavid Bey. [1917-12-11-DE-001]

In the spring of 1918, Roessler reports on the final deportations from the region north of Kharput:

It has just come to my knowledge that during the middle of March, at the order of the commander of the 4^th Corps, Ali Ihsan Pasha, measures were again carried out against the remainder of the Armenians still there, in particular in Vilayet Mamuret-ul-Aziz. Thus, about 300 women and children were brought to Mamuret-ul-Aziz from the towns of Pertak and Peri. The adolescent boys were tied up and brought on their own behind the others. The Wali of Mamuret-ul-Aziz left the women and children unhindered, but the boys were taken to prison. [1918-05-15-DE-001]

To sum up: With the exception of the inhabitants of Smyrna and, to some extent, Aleppo as well as those who had been residing in Constantinople for a long time, all of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire who lived within the pre-War boundaries were deported or chosen for deportation. From this time on, their survival depended on the course of the deportations.

(III) Forced Conversions to Islam

An unknown number of Armenians remained in their home towns or in towns that were mainly in Anatolia. Armenian women were incorporated in harems, children in families or orphanages, boys and men were hidden. It also seems that village communities received permission to stay under certain conditions. It was a precondition for all of these people that they convert to Islam. A conversion to Islam which was generally carried out by force destroyed the identity of those Armenians who survived outside the cities of Constantinople and – in the beginning – Smyrna, an identity which mainly included the Gregorian, sometimes also the Catholic or Protestant faith.

Vice-Consul Kuckhoff reports from Samsun:

they involve nothing less than the destruction or enforced Islamization of a whole people. ... The way in which the expulsion orders are being carried out threatens to go to such extremes that it only finds parallels in the persecution of the Jews in Spain and Portugal: The government sent fanatical, strictly religious Muslim men and women into all Armenian homes to spread propaganda for converting to Islam, of course under threat of serious consequences for those who remain true to their beliefs. ... In the area around Samsun, all Armenian villages have been converted to Islam, in Uniah likewise. [1915-07-16-DE-003]

In a petition to the Imperial Chancellor, the German Protestant Christians write:

Girls and young women were carried off to the Turkish harems and Kurdish villages, where they had no choice but to convert to Islam. Moreover, countless numbers of children were taken from their Christian parents to be brought up now as Moslems. Some hundreds of Christian families were spared deportation as they decided themselves to convert to Islam. [1915-11-10-DE-011]

Undersecretary of State, Arthur Zimmermann, writes to his Ambassador Wolff-Metternich in Constantinople that according to his information

the Turkish government is attempting to force the remainder of the Armenian people to convert to Islam. It is obvious that we cannot watch quietly while such actions are going on. [1915-12-12-DE-002]

The Director and Deputy Chairman of the German Christian Charity-Organisation for the Orient, Friedrich Schuchardt, reports to the German Foreign Office on his investigations in Constantinople:

An American missionary brought a document with him which was sent by the central authority to the local authorities in the interior. In this, the latter authority is ordered to use its influence to have the remaining part of the Armenian population sign a document requesting a great favour: permission to convert to Islam. Those who refuse will, according to current practice, be sent to their certain death in exile. [1915-12-12-DE-002]

Consul Buege reports from Adana:

The Director of the Turkish orphanage explained to the Christian pupils that either they had to convert to Islam or they had to leave the orphanage … [and] that in an Ottoman orphanage there was no room for the Christian religion. [1915-12-21-DE-011]

Officially, those in a position of responsibility in Constantinople denied any form whatsoever of centrally forced conversions to Islam and placed the blame – as was done so often in the case of the deportations – on the “ ;infringement by lower civil servants”. Ambassador Neurath quotes the Foreign Minister:

Halil Bey denies categorically that forced conversions to Islam in numbers worth mentioning have been attempted. The lower civil servants have already been punished for the encroachments, which have occurred. [1915-12-21-DE-011]

This is in direct opposition to the statements made by the German observers. Vice-Consul Hoffmann speaks of

approx. 25000 Armenians who, according to Armenian reports, have converted to Islam ... in order to save themselves. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

Those in charge also denied the forced conversions to Islam in conversations with Ambassador Wolff-Metternich. The ambassador summarises:

In response to my protests the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Halil Bey, categorically denied, that any significant number of forced conversions of Armenians to Islam had been attempted. The lower civil servants involved in those reported cases of encroachments had already been punished. The assurances of the Minister are contradictory to the concurring reports which the Imperial Embassy has been repeatedly receiving concerning this question from different localities and from independent sources. From the detailed statements of Vice - Consul Kuckhoff in Samsun, which have been confirmed from other sources, it can be concluded that in particular in the districts around the Black Sea the attempts to Islamize the Armenians, partly through persuasion and partly through threats, has been carried out on a very large scale. [1916-01-24-DE-001]

Wolff-Metternich repeats the views of further witnesses:

In Mr. Roessler’s opinion, further defence of those who have been converted in this manner would only lead to their being deported and killed along the way. It has finally been confirmed in a letter from Konia that the Armenians concentrated there are gradually being deported further into the interior, where they are then divided up among Turkish villages and forced to accept Islam. [1916-01-28-DE-001]

Concerning his field of work, Consul Roessler reports:

At the end of February, beginning of March the Armenians in the labour battalion in Aleppo were recommended to convert to the Islamic faith, partly with success. In the course of the month of March, the police compiled lists of the Armenians in Aleppo in preparation for deportation and spread the word that the only way of being spared from deportation was the conversion to Islam. [1916-04-27-DE-001]

Wolff-Metternich writes with regard to the forced conversions to Islam:

Both Halil Bey and Talaat Bey have assured me repeatedly that the last thing they wished to do was to carry out any action against the Christian elements in the Armenian population. Any excesses by the lower public authorities would be punished most strictly. … Halil Bey assured me again that the central government in Constantinople knew nothing of these occurrences. After speaking with his colleague, Talaat Bey, he stated that strict orders had lately been given to the provincial authorities to stop all attempts to convert the Christian Armenian population to Islam. In addition, the provincial authorities had been strictly forbidden to accept even voluntary offers of conversion to Islam. Indeed, since that time no new reports of attempts at conversion of the Armenian population have been received here. [1916-05-11-DE-001]

But for the past month the German witnesses on the spot have been speaking of further forced conversions to Islam. Werth, the secretary at the consulate, reports from Sivas on the discovery of a Greek-Armenian committee. According to Werth, as a result of that

all of the Armenians left here to built roads, those who are in the construction and engineering regiment as well as those in the trade school, and also all of the Greeks were locked up yesterday evening in the local Armenian church. The Greeks and those Armenians who had converted to Islam were released again today after a severe bastinado. The authorities recommended to the other Armenians that they convert to Islam; if not, they would be deported and banned to a place not yet decided upon. [1916-06-28-DE-001]

Loytved-Hardegg, the Consul in Damascus, reports:

All of the Armenians are more or less being forced to become Mohammedans. [1916-06-30-DE-011]

Ambassador Wolff-Metternich:

Despite the official denial and despite alleged orders to the contrary, the forced conversion of the Armenians to Islam is also being carried out in other places. Our counter-suggestions are of no use. [1916-07-08-DE-011]

Only two days later the ambassador states more precisely:

Despite all official denials, Islamization plays a great role in this last phase of the persecution of the Armenians. [1916-07-10-DE-001]

Wolff-Metternich believes,

but they do apply, in as far as the main motive is not religious fanaticism, as for example with the enforced conversion of the Jews and Moors in Spain in the 15^th and 16^th centuries, but the intention to amalgamate the Armenians with the Muslim population of the empire. [1916-07-10-DE-001]

The consulate secretary in Sivas, Werth, reports:

Today, to celebrate the day (national holiday), all the Armenian military doctors of every rank were forced by threat to convert to Islam. [1916-07-23-DE-001]

Vice-Consul Hoffmann from Alexandrette reports from the south:

According to unanimous reports, during the past few weeks in Hama, Homs, Damascus etc. the deportees have been forced in masses to convert to Islam by threatening them with further deportation. This is a purely bureaucratic procedure: petition and then a change of name. [1916-08-29-DE-001]

It is also clear to Zimmermann, Secretary of State of the German Foreign Office, that the Armenians have been forced to convert to Islam. He instructs his manager in Constantinople, Goeppert:

According to reliable sources and contrary to all Turkish attempts to deny this, the forced conversions to the Islamic religion among the deported Armenians are being continued. ... It was only with great difficulty that we managed to prevent a public discussion of the deplorable occurrences until now. Those interested ... urgently demanding guarantees that those who have been forced to convert will have the factual possibility after peace has been made of returning to their former faith. I request that Your Excellency brings up this matter again in a friendly, but suitably serious manner with the Porte and indicates that by tolerating the forced conversions to the Islamic religion it is not only making its position at the peace conference more difficult, but also giving the powers a new lever – now and also in future – to interfere in national Turkish affairs. [1916-12-25-DE-001]

Goeppert’s response:

Instructions carried out. Halil Bey promised to work towards immediately stopping the forced conversions. An immediate return to Christianity of those forced to convert is not opportune. ... He promised to work on Enver Pasha and Talaat Bey towards immediately stopping the forced conversions. To facilitate a return to Christianity at this point for those who converted would probably not be feasible and not practical, because this could result in new deportations. This will be just as possible after the war, as it was after the persecution of the Armenians during the age of Abdul Hamid. [1917-01-05-DE-011]

Ernst I. Christoffel, the manager of Malatia, the home for the blind, summarises his experiences:

There are still a number of scattered or refugees in the Anatolian towns, most of whom, however, have converted to Islam. Apart from the forced conversions which took place in masses, a further characteristic symbol was the mass adoption of Armenian children. This was carried out for many thousands. They are being artificially turned into fanatical Mohammedans. [1917-07-14-DE-001]

(IV) The Deportations as far as the Collection Points:

To give a rough idea, the deportation trains travelled to collection points in the south of the country, especially to Aleppo and the surrounding area. There they separated in two directions: one went south to Palastina, the other east along the river Euphrates to the Mesopotamian desert, towards Mossul. The Turkish administration headquarters for the deportations was also in Aleppo.

As found throughout the entire implementation of the Armenian genocide, there were also extremely varied processes here: they ranged from the annihilation of entire deportation trains to – relatively – well-ordered deportations, although this applied to only a few trains and also usually only to certain stretches. Many reports give a general impression of what happened on the Anatolian roads.

1) The Deportation Trains

Most of those deported were sent via certain routes. One of the deportation routes was from Trebizond and Erzerum via Erzindjan to the south, whereby there was a difference – in some cases a great difference – between the trains from the two towns.

Ambassador Wangeheim on the deportations from Trebizond:

Altogether, this involved about 30000 people in the Vilayet Trapezunt alone who were to be deported via Erzindschan to Mesopotamia. A mass transportation of this kind to a destination many hundreds of kilometres away, without sufficient means of transport, through areas that offer neither accommodation nor food and which are infested with epidemic diseases, in particular by typhus fever, is bound to claim numerous victims, in particular amongst the women and children. [1915-07-07-DE-001]

This was confirmed by the wartime volunteer, Carl Schlimme, who reports the following about a horseride in June 1915:

On the morning of 26 June, a large group of expellees passed through Ersindjan, consisting only of women and children. Many among them were ill and well advanced in pregnancy; many women and most of the children were half naked. They carried bundles of grass and ate this, because they had nothing else. ... This group headed towards the Kemach gorge. On 27 June I met another group of women and children at the Sibikoi pass. They were also in a miserable state. ... Then, in Sibikoi, there was a third group, which was to spend the night there. They were packed together in a circle in an open square and the gendarmes did not even permit them to fetch water. Shortly before Trapezunt, I met a caravan on 1 July consisting of men, women and children. Based on their clothing, these were Armenian notabilities carrying their bundles themselves, because they had neither wagons nor donkeys. The people of Trapezunt were forced out in an awful and cruel manner. They were not allowed to sell anything or take anything with them. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

Neukirch, the German Red Cross doctor stationed in Erzindjan:

According to a good source, the occurrences in Trapezunt were also not carried out correctly. The people from the area there came through here on foot and with little or no belongings. [1915-11-06-DE-011]

Scheubner-Richter reported from Erzerum:

At the beginning of June, the first group of Armenian notabilities were given a period of 14 days to leave Erserum. Approximately 500 people left Erserum on June 16 and marched through the mountains via Kharput to Urfa. ... The second group, approximately 3000 people, left Erserum on June 19 and 20. ... The rest of them reached Ersindjan without being molested, where they stayed until the roads were secured. The third group of expellees, still approximately 300 families, left Erserum on June 26. They reached Ersindjan safely and without being molested. The fourth group, consisting mainly of trademen's families who had first received residence permits from the government, which were later taken away from them at the order of the army's Supreme Command, also reached Ersindjan safely via Baiburt. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

The Red Cross doctor, Neukirch, compared the miserable state of the trains from Trebizond with the relatively well-organised deportation trains from Erzerum:

After what could be observed here in the recent past, successful steps have been taken to make the deportation of the Armenians more humane, although, naturally, we have no further details about them. While previously miserable hoards of poor women and children with no belongings were driven past, accompanied by only a few armed men, the people who passed by later on also had pack animals and livestock with them. In the end, the citizens of Erzerum passed by in huge, well-equipped ox-cart caravans. The people (obviously all of the men present) looked very well, travelled in short stages and were protected by extremely numerous gendarmes led by officers. The largest of the trains was accompanied by a high official, the Mutessarif of Bajazid himself. The people encamped on the Erzindjan plain and moved on after about a week. [1915-11-06-DE-011]

For most of the deported, the journey continued through the infamous Kemach gorge. Their fate is documented elsewhere.

An Austrian personally witnessed the passing of a train of deported people near Urfa:

Those groups that had already been on the march for a week or even longer gave a pitiful impression. Many exhausted and ill as a result of the tribulations of the march, limped along dragging children behind them (many babies and pregnant women). Looking at the children, the old and otherwise weak people one could usually observe that they had sore, swollen feet that were wrapped in rags. ... Many a group limps by, screaming in pain - as soon as they see a person, many of these wretched souls fall on their knees and beg for help and salvation or offer their children for adoption. Many die of exhaustion on these marches at 56° Centigrade and without water - anyone who is left behind can be sure of death. [1915-08-13-DE-001]

Consul Roessler gives an estimate of the losses suffered on the Armenian deportation trains:

Just as in similar earlier cases, I have received exact information about a further group which has left Adiaman. Of the 696 that left there, 321 arrived in Aleppo; 206 men and 57 women were murdered, 70 women and girls and 19 boys were kidnapped. [1915-08-13-DE-001]

Germans from Konia made other observations. The head of the local Anatolian Society of Industry and Commerce, Willy Seeger, the secondary school teacher, Georg Biegel, the foreman, Heinrich Janson, and the graduate engineer, J.E. Maurer, informed the embassy in a joint letter:

Women and children are being driven along with blows of the fists and with sticks. ... How great is the despair of mothers who have to give away their children in order to spare them the most wretched fate. ... Children who have been taken in by compassionate Christian families are later taken away from them by the authorities and given to the Turks. [1915-08-21-DE-011]

Consul Roessler, who gathered many reports on the fate of the Armenians, personally experienced the passage of deportees at his seat of office in Aleppo:

Individual events, which presumably have otherwise taken place unnoticed recently happened in Aleppo before the eyes of the population itself. … The Swiss chief operating officer of the Baghdad railway told me that he had experienced many things in his life, which had hardened him, but that he would never have thought such a thing as this procession to be possible. It reminded him of the pictures of Indian famines. [1915-09-27-DE-014]

Von Tyszka, the German journalist:

Nothing was undertaken on the part of the Turkish government to transport the expelled to their place of exile. The trains were occupied by the transportation of troops. No Armenian found space there. For the journey, no security measures were taken to ensure their safety. [1915-10-01-DE-001]

The German Protestant Christians report in a petition to the Imperial Chancellor that the measures of deportation

have been carried out with inhumane harshness over the last few months. [1915-11-10-DE-011]

Scheubner-Richter writes about a horseride from Erzerum via Khinis, Mush, Bitlis and Seert to Mossul:

On the entire journey, I and the German gentlemen who were accompanying me, saw the corpses of Armenian men, women and children: most displayed signs of multiple bayonet wounds. This was seen despite the route having been cleared of corpses by gendarmes at the instruction of the Government. [1915-11-09-DE-011]

The German teacher, Martin Niepage, speaks in his report to the German parliamentarians of

the indescribable brutality, the thirst, the hunger which is decimating those who are left, mostly widows and orphans who have been robbed of their very last possessions, before they, often only mere skeletons, arrive here, only perhaps one in six left, and that person is sent out again into the desert on a similar pitiful journey without any means of livelihood - and all that just to be rid of the Armenian name. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

Consul Roessler reports on stretches in the Syrian desert south of Urfa where those responsible were obviously only interested in exhausting the deportees:

The account by the Armenians, which is told over and over again, that the convoys full of exiles were deliberately driven backwards and forwards in order to “run them to death” is confirmed in this report by just one example. One group of deportees from Urfa was forced to take the following route: From Urfa to Tell-Abiad, from Tell-Abiad to Rakka, from Rakka to Tell-Abiad, from Tell-Abiad to Rakka. The distance from Tell-Abiad to Rakka is about 90 kms as the crow flies. [1916-01-03-DE-002]

The Catholic member of the Reichstag, Matthias Erzberger, notes in a memo:

The reports brought by non-Armenian witnesses from the heart of the country are so appalling that they cannot be written down. ... The people are driven like herds of animals for weeks and months to their destination and only in the rarest cases has the necessary food been provided for. Thus, these poor people fall prey in huge numbers to hunger and disease. Once they reach their destination they do not remain there, either, but are driven to a new destination and from here to another one, thus never having a chance to rest. [1916-03-03-DE-001]

Hunger and thirst , in part deliberately brought about by those responsible, decimated the deportees. Because, so Wangenheim,

It is impossible to expect the government to support the exiles with money, food and other things. [1915-06-17-DE-003]

Schlimme, the German wartime volunteer, reports that he

met Armenian women between Erzindjan and Sipikor whose hunger caused them to eat grass. [1915-07-02-DE-011]

Consul Roessler:

One group that arrived here on 12^th inst., from Siwas had been on the road for 3 months and was completely exhausted. Some died immediately after their arrival. They had often been refused water en route. Along the Muradsu they were led in circles for 14 days in one place in such a way that during the daytime they had no water at all. I have not been informed how great the number of losses was in this group. [1915-08-13-DE-001]

The Germans Seeger, Biegel & Co write:

The whole of the route from here to beyond Aleppo resembles a caravan of misery and wretchedness. In places such as Karaman, Eregli and Bozanti, where the people themselves are suffering from a shortage of bread, the fate of the deportees is unimaginable; they are destined to suffer a slow, agonising death by starvation. [1915-08-21-DE-011]

Roessler’s summary:

Starvation and epidemics are driving numerous to their deaths. [1915-11-08-DE-001]

2) Isolation of Those Men able to defend Themselves in Labour Battalions

In order to eliminate resistance to the deportations, those responsible for the genocide had isolated the Armenian soldiers from their fellow countrymen. Already in March 1915, the Armenian soldiers were not permitted to bear arms in military service. Wangenheim reports that

for the past few weeks, the Armenians liable for compulsory service – both those men who have completed their military service and recruits – are no longer permitted to bear arms; rather, they are put to use building roads and carrying out similar duties. [1915-03-29-DE-001]

Vice-Consul Scheubner-Richter reported that

male Armenians [were] called up for service in labour battalions. [1915-05-16-DE-011]

In a petition to the Imperial Chancellor, the German Protestant Christians speak of

those Armenian men able to bear arms were conscripted into the army to be detailed as porters and road workers on the interior military roads. [1915-11-10-DE-011]

But the German Protestant Christians were also aware of the later fate of the labour battalions:

Those called up for military service were attacked and shot in the street. [1915-11-10-DE-011]

This fate is confirmed by the Swiss deacon from Urfa, Kuenzler. On 20 August 1915, he reports:

About 100 Armenians from the work battalion were brutally murdered about 1 ½ hours to the north of Urfa. A day later, 400 from a labour battalion who were working in the south. [1916-01-03-DE-002]

Scheubner-Richter reports that Halil Bey’s campaign to northern Persia

resulted in the massacre of his Armenian and Syrian battalions. [1916-12-04-DE-001]

3) Separation and Annihilation of the Armenian Men

Separating men and women was a measure constantly used to weaken the deportees. Vice-Consul Holstein reports from Mossul:

Until now, about six hundred women and children (Armenian, Chaldean, Syrian), whose male relatives in Seert, Mardin and Feihshahbur were massacred, have arrived here; the same number are expected during the next few days. [1915-07-21-DE-012]

Consul Roessler from Aleppo:

According to news received by the Catholicos of Sis, 800 to 1000 men who had been sent from Diarbekr to the south, never arrived. It is presumed that they have all been murdered. This must refer to an event which happened weeks ago. [1915-07-27-DE-001]

Roessler further reports:

The Armenians from Kharput are reporting that in one village, some hours to the south of the town, the men were separated from the women. [1915-07-27-DE-001]

A witness reported to Roessler:

In Ras ul Ain, there are about 1600 women and children at present, the remainder of several thousands who were expelled from Charput and the surrounding area together with their husbands. Among these 1600 persons there is no longer one single man or male person over the age of 12 years. [1915-07-27-DE-001]

In Erzindjan, Scheubner-Richter observed deportation trains from Trebizond:

In fact, while in Ersindjan I did not notice any men among those Armenians from Vilayet Trapezunt passing through. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

An Austrian reports:

These transports consisted only of women, old people and children. There was an absence of agile, robust men. [1915-08-13-DE-001]

The German journalist, von Tyszka, writes:

In the places where the massacres against the Armenians took place, for example in Baiburt, Marasch, Schebbin-Karahissar, Angora and Malatia, the men were separated from the families. [1915-10-01-DE-001]

Scheubner-Richter summarises after his ride through eastern Anatolia:

I did not see any living male Armenian. It is said that a number of them fled into the mountains. [1915-11-09-DE-011]

Finally, Vice-Consul Hoffman from Aleppo reports:

that many, even most of the convoys coming from those areas were lacking men or older boys. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

For, generally speaking, these men were the victims of mass murders . German evidence gives information on the fate of these men, most of whom were separated from their families. Mordtmann, the expert on Armenia, notes after a conversation with Sister Alma Johansson on Kharput:

The grand-scale elimination of all males took place during the first days of July [1915-11-06-DE-012]

Consul Roessler confirmed the fate of the men from Kharput who were separated from the women in a village a few hours along the road south of the town:

The men were slaughtered to death and lay to the right and left of the road along which the women then had to pass. [1915-07-27-DE-001]

Vice-Consul Holstein reports from Mossul:

All the men were murdered along the way. [1915-07-16-DE-012]

From Erzerum, Scheubner-Richter reported on 500 deported Armenians:

According to a statement made by the government, 14 of these people were murdered along the way; I have received private information that almost all the men were murdered. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

According to Scheubner-Richter, part of a second group

especially the men, were separated at Baiburt and I have been unable to ascertain anything as to their whereabouts. They were probably murdered. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

In other regions, according to Scheubner-Richter, the deportations were carried out even more rigorously than in Erzerum:

almost all of the men in Vilayet Trapezunt have supposedly been killed. ... The Armenians in Siwas were treated in a similarly brusque manner. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

The wartime volunteer, Carl Schlimme, found confirmation of this during a horseride in June 1915:

I was informed by Turkish country dwellers that most of the men from Trapezunt were killed on the way to Gemischaneh. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

Lieutenant Colonel Stange also knew of the mass murders of the Armenian men:

Out of the first convoy which left on 16 June on the direct route to Charput and which mainly consisted of Armenian notables who had a lot of baggage with them, all the men, with very few exceptions, have been murdered. [1915-08-23-DE-013]

The expert on Armenia, Mordtmann, states in his notes as one of

the purpose[s] of the deportation of the Armenians: i.e. the elimination of the men. [1915-12-21-DE-011]

The teacher from Allepin, Martin Niepage, writes in his report to the German representatives of the people that he no longer wished to linger with

the thousands of men who are butchered to death, either after being drawn aside or even before the eyes of their families. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

Vice-Consul Hoffmann from Aleppo summarises:

It can be regarded as an established fact that in the actual Armenian Vilayets - quite apart from the war zone near Wan - the deportation has been accompanied by the massacre of the adult male Armenians, but also partly of the whole population of Armenian towns and villages. The statements made by the survivors of such deported convoys are concordant with each other in such a way that a prior agreement to this effect is out of the question. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

The men’s escape was a standard excuse used to explain why male deportees were missing on the trains. Hoffmann on this point:

This admission, however, - and please note that this is exactly what is involved here - contradicts the well-known strong family sense amongst the Armenians. Whenever the men fled in large numbers into the mountains, such as in the area around Suedije by the coast, they took the women and children with them. I know of cases where Armenian soldiers, having deserted, did not flee into the mountains, but headed straight for their families so that they could be deported with them, although they already knew what deportation entailed for them. In a few actual cases of armed rebellion against the deportation - in Fundadschak and Urfa - the rebels barricaded themselves in, together with their wives and children. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

4) The Fate of the Women and Girls

After the extensive annihilation of the Armenian men right at the beginning of the deportations, the women and girls were left defenceless. Consul Roessler appeals to his embassy:

The larger part of the Armenian deportees are women. They would be defenceless and liable to be violated during transport and in the villages. Would it not be possible to only deport the men and leave the women and children in Aleppo? Numerous children have already fallen victim to the deportations. [1915-06-06-DE-012]

Vice-Consul Holstein also confirms that women and children were left to cope on their own, and writes about the consequences:

Of those banned here from Vilayet Diarbekir, only women and children have arrived here, and of the latter only about 1/3 of the original number ... of the women, the young ones were divided among the Muslim Kurds. [1915-07-16-DE-012]

Consul Roessler confirms these observations:

One group of women and girls was completely plundered between Mardin and Ras ul Ain by Bedouins. Those whom the Bedouins liked were dragged off by them. [1915-07-27-DE-001]

On his ride through the east, Scheubner-Richter found traces of Armenian women:

Around 500 Armenian women and children find themselves in deplorable conditions in the Armenian church in Bitlis. Armenian women are thought to be held captive in Turkish households. [1915-11-09-DE-011]

The German Protestant Christians report in their petition to the Imperial Chancellor that

the women, children, sick, and elderly, now robbed of any male protection, were driven out of their places of domicile and robbed of all possessions. Lacking equipment or provisions, barefoot, hungry, dying of thirst and subjected to continous mistreatment and violations, countless hundreds and thousands of Armenians were driven like cattle more than a hundred miles into exile while being intimidated by coarse Sapties. [1915-11-10-DE-011]

Vice-Consul Hoffmann’s observations in Aleppo:

On each of those ten carts, 8 to 10 starving women and children were cowering, without any luggage, straw or water, without any trace of food, blankets, etc. One was dead, another lay there dying. There were no males with them over the age of 10 to 11 years. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

For many Armenian mothers, the sale of girls and children was the only chance of keeping their children alive. Consul Roessler reports:

As I heard from an elderly Swiss couple, who are definitely trustworthy and have until now been living in Tel Abiad, the Armenians in that town sold their daughters aged between 8 and 12 years, first for 2 medjidis (one medjidi was equivalent to about 3.50 marks), later for 1 medjidi and less or they gave them away for nothing. Apparently they wanted to spare them the fate awaiting them in the desert as a result of the climate and of the Bedouins. The Turks in the village of Tell Abiad came rushing time and time again to barter with the deportees for their children. [1915-07-27-DE-001]

Vice-Consul Hoffmann also reports on the sale of girls and women:

It has been reported earlier that some of the more attractive girls and women had been sold by the accompanying gendarmes and officers to the local Kurds. According to observations made by Vice-Consul Holstein, the price for a woman in the area through which he had travelled was anything up to 5 piasters (95 German pfennigs). [1916-01-03-DE-001]

One-and-a-half years later, the wife of the German head of the orphanage in Kharput, Mrs. Ehmann, gives information on the fate of many of these women and children:

Once again, we have quite a few Armenians hier in the upper part of town, i.e. women and children; they gather here from the entire surrounding area. Most of them had been staying with the Turks, working in the fields or as wives, and were then simply thrown out when they were no longer wanted. [1917-05-23-DE-001]

In some cases, German witnesses report on extreme sexual power of disposal over the defenceless Armenian women.

The German missionary, Blank, reports on the orders of an officer:

Finally he gave them the right to dispose over the women among these poor people by saying they may do what they like with them. [1915-05-27-DE-001]

Vice-Consul Hoffmann describes in detail orders given for young girls and women and verifies them with photographs:

Encl. 1 is a petition by the Aleppo Building Department of the Baghdad Railway for the exemption of 53-year-old Karapanos, foreman in Karababa, and his family of ten, including 4 sisters: Mariam (21 years old), Rosa (18 yrs.), Anna (10 yrs.) and Guelfedar (8 yrs.). The petition was disposed of with the order ”With the exception of those marked in red, they can remain in Aleppo. 22. Eylul 331. The military commissioner: Hairi.”
Marked in red are the 21- and 18-year-old sisters.
Encl. 2 is a petition by the same division of construction for the sparing in Karababa of Schuekri Hampar, employed as a baker, and his family of six, including the sisters Mariam (21 years) and Guertschi (18 years). The application was accepted as follows:
”The two sisters cannot be exempted. The others are free. 22. Eylul 331. The military commissioner: Hairi.”

There can be no doubt as to the fates of these four sisters who, as a result of the above orders, were separated from their families and deported without any male protection. I have searched in vain for an explanation to justify these orders. Anyone who knows about family life and morality in Turkey, will not be able to free himself of the feeling of witnessing an outrage, of being astounded at the recklessness with which the Turkish authorities issue orders of this kind in answer to petitions by a German company. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

The German engineer, Bastendorff, reports on the fate of Armenian women in Ras ul Ain:

The Circassians and Arabs from Ras-el-Ain took the prettiest girls home with them, many of them had already been retained by the Kurds during the journey. The policemen carried on a flourishing trade with the girls: against payment of a few Medjidies, anyone could take the girl of his choice either for a short while or for ever.The supervisor over the Armenians in Ras-el-Ain, a certain Nuri Çavush, even declared in the presence of our doctor Farah, that it always gave him great pleasure to deflower Armenian girls under the age of 12 years. [1916-01-03-DE-002]

As in the case of the men, the deported women were also subjected to mass murders . An Austrian witness reports on the statements of Armenian women who fled:

On the way from Adiaman they had seen naked, murdered women, also mutilated ones, with their breasts cut off. [1915-08-13-DE-001]

An eye witness, who travelled on the Baghdad railway, reported to Vice-Consul Hoffmann:

In six places between Tell-Ebiad and Kueltepe I saw dead naked women lying near to the railway lines, also a dead naked woman with mutilated feet, then two dead children, another dead older girl, next to her a dead child, then the still clothed body of a dead woman and another dead woman who had been gagged. Also I twice saw two dead children, making a total of 18 bodies in all. The women, except for one, were all completely naked, and, as far as I could tell from the train, all showed evidence of maltreatment. All the dead children were still clothed. Between Kueltepe and Harab-Nass I saw a dying child next to a telegraph pole, a further six completely naked dead women and two dead children. A completely naked woman crept out from under a bridge and begged with widespread arms that someone take her with them. But she was left behind. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

In his report to the representatives of the people, the teacher, Martin Niepage, did not wish to

dwell on the numerous girls, women and children, who are being molested or mutilated by the guards and their accomplices and whose naked corpses are left lying by the wayside, along which the ever new hoards of deportees must pass. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

Armenian women often only survived because they were taken in by Turks and Kurds. Very few had had – relatively – good experiences during deportation. With regard to these women, the Austrian witness reported:

I saw for myself two women aged 16 and 30 years, who were dragged from the street by Turks and who then told me themselves - when the same day I was a guest of the Turks - they were from Adiaman and had already been on the move for 10 days. The gendarmes had been good to them, fought off a band of Kurd robbers who were lying in wait to seize some women; in the villages they were always given bread and cheese. A daily march lasted 6 - 7 hours; they often had a chance to rest. [1915-08-13-DE-001]

5) Annihilation of Entire Trains

According to the German reports, the Armenians were partly or totally annihilated in several residential locations.

Mordtmann, the German consul general responsible for reporting on the Armenians in Turkey, noted after a discussion with the Swedish nun, Alma Johansson, who worked for the “German Christian Charity-Organisation for the Orient“ , on the events in Mush during the middle of June 1915:

The city was surrounded by troops and encircled by artillery. On the night of Sunday, the 11 July, the massacres began, using rifles. The Turks claimed that several Armenians had attempted to break out in the direction of Sassun. A few well-situated Armenians were informed in the konak that they had to leave the city within three days, along with the entire population. But all their possessions had to be left behind as they now belonged to the state. Within two hours without waiting for the end of this period, the Turks had begun breaking into Armenian homes and plundering them. On Monday the 12^th , light artillery and rifle fire could be heard the whole day. The local Turkish population participated in these events. … The male Armenian population was murdered right in front of the town. The women, girls and children were carried off and taken on a further day’s march before being disposed of. Only three Armenian teachers from the orphanage were later set free. After the city was cleared, the Armenian Quarter was put to the torch and razed to the ground, along with the Armenian villages. [1915-11-06-DE-012]

Vice-Consul Holstein from Mossul reports on Mardin:

The former Mutessarif of Mardin, at present here, informed me about the following: The Vali of Diarbekir, Reschid Bey, ... just recently in Mardin .. allowed seven hundred Christians, mostly Armenians and including the Armenian Bishop to be slaughtered like sheep in one night near the city. They had been gathered together by the Gendarmerie sent especially from Diarbekir. Reschid Bey continued with this bloody deed against the innocent whose numbers have surpassed two thousand; confirmed today by the Mutessarif. [1915-07-10-DE-011]

Vice-Consul Scheubner-Richter reports that

large massacres of Armenians have been carried out on the Khänus plain. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

Concerning Trebizond, Lieutenant Colonel Stange was able to report:

In Trapezunt, Armenians were driven out to sea and then thrown overboard. The Bishop of Trapezunt was summoned to appear before a court-martial in Erserum and was strangulated on his way there, together with his guards. [1915-08-23-DE-013]

Consul Bergfeld from Trebizond:

During the general deportation of the Armenians from Trapezunt, individual persons received oral or written permission from the Wali to stay here. These were officials from the Ottoman Bank, the Regie, two wives of officials and some unmarried women. They have now been deported one night and apparently killed right outside the town. [1915-08-27-DE-013]

Mass killing right in the residential location was also carried out in Angora, today known as Ankara. Ambassador Hohenlohe writes to Berlin that according to investigations by the Armenian Catholic Patriarch,

Armenians from Angora (mainly Catholics), including the Catholic Archbishop with his clergy and several nuns, ... all of them were killed some distance away. [1915-09-04-DE-001]

Vice-Consul Holstein reports that

With the participation of the military, bands of Kurds, who had been hired expressly for this purpose by Fetki Bey, the deputy of Diarbekir, had massacred the entire Christian population of the town of Djeziré (Vilayet Diarbekir) and that this was tolerated by the local authorities. In 1891, the number of inhabitants of Djeziré was estimated at about 10000, half of whom were Mohammedans (and of those, over 2000 Kurds); the other half consisted of 4750 Armenians (2500 Gregorians, 1250 Catholics, 1000 Protestants), 250 Catholic Chaldeans and 100 Syrian Jacobites. [1915-09-11-DE-011]

Scheubner-Richter travelled from Erzerum to Bitlis and reports on

the atrocious sight of the slain Armenians in the devastated villages of the areas we travelled through as far as Bitlis [1916-12-04-DE-001]

Many of the deported never reached their goal, because they were killed along the way. The annihilation of entire trains has been documented several times. Vice-Consul Holstein reports from Mossul:

614 Armenian men, women and children, banned here from Diarbekir, were all massacred on their journey by raft; Keleks arrived here empty yesterday; for the past few days, bodies and human limbs have been floating past here in the river. Further transports of Armenian “emigrants” are on their way here; the same fate awaits them. [1915-06-10-DE-011]

Scheubner-Richter also reports on the mass murders of the deportees:

The Armenians deported from the plain of Erzerum were attacked by Kurds and similar riff-raff on their way to Kharput via Ersindjan. The majority of the men and children were murdered, the women robbed. [1915-06-18-DE-013]

Shortly thereafter, Scheubner-Richter gives a first estimate of the number of victims:

The number of Armenians murdered along the way amounts to three thousand. [1915-06-30-DE-013]

Later, Scheubner-Richter corrected the figure which had obviously been given to him by the government:

Between 10 and 20000 people were probably killed, but the government's figures lie between only 3 and 4000. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

Wangenheim reports to Berlin:

Besides this, the route for the deportees led through the Kurd district of Dersim, and the Vali of Trapezunt made an open declaration to the Consul, who had pointed such observations out to him, that he could only guarantee the safety of the transport as far as Erzindschan. From that point onwards, they are letting the deportees practically run the gauntlet through bands of Kurds and other waylayers. [1915-07-07-DE-001]

The stretch that was so lethal for the Armenians led through the Kemagh gorge of the river Euphrates, south of Erzindjan. Scheubner-Richter reports:

Similarly, during the same period of time [as the inhabitants of Erserum ] and with the exception of only a few people, the inhabitants of the Ersindjan plain were also robbed and killed while passing through the Kemach gorge, and the women were kidnapped. [1915-08-05-DE-002]

Lieutenant Colonel Stange, the German officer who was also stationed in Erzerum, states more precisely:

The Armenians from Ersindjan were all driven together into the Kemach (Euphrates) valley and massacred there. There are fairly credible reports that the bodies were loaded onto carts which had already been placed there in preparation, and driven to the Euphrates and then thrown into the river. [1915-08-23-DE-013]

Mass murders also took place along tributaries of the Euphrates. An eye witness reported to Roessler:

In Besnije, the entire population of about 1800 women and children and only a few men was deported; they were supposed to be transported to Urfa. By the river Goeksu, a tributary of the Euphrates, they had to take off their clothes, were then all massacred and thrown into the river. [1915-07-27-DE-001]

The German witnesses reported several times on having seen the bodies of Armenian deportees in the Euphrates. Consul Roessler:

it was observed in Rumkaleh, Biredjik and Djerabulus that bodies had been floating past on the Euphrates for a total of 25 days. ... the bodies had stopped floating past for an interval of several days and then began again, in much larger numbers. This time they were mainly the bodies of women and children. [1915-07-27-DE-001]

In a further report, Roessler writes:

Bodies are again floating down the Euphrates, in greater numbers and this time mainly women and children; they are being eaten by dogs and vultures. [1915-07-27-DE-011]

The elimination of the bodies also bears witness to the deaths along the deportation roads. An Austrian testifies:

On the road Urfa-Arab Punar, I did not, in fact, see any bodies in the dark, but my coachman, who travels this route regularly, showed me burnt patches at intervals by the side of the road where human bodies had been burned on the spot. [1915-08-13-DE-001]

Consul Roessler reports from Aleppo:

Two dying women lay near a grave. Around them stand gravediggers and street urchins, waiting for the moment of death to lay them in the grave. In answer to my question, how these women got to the cemetery, I was told: There were five bodies brought on an oxen cart, placed one on top of the other without a coffin. When the gravedigger wanted to carry out his duties he noticed that of the five bodies three were still alive. A boy whose death did not seem to be imminent was taken away from the cemetery, while the two women were kept there. [1915-09-27-DE-014]

Roessler reports on a journey he made:

After sighting the first of these corpses I went to the first khan and demanded of the owner that he send someone against payment to bury them. He smiled, but did as I wished. When I asked him as to why he had smiled he replied, “If you wish, I will have this corpse buried, but why do you lay so much value on this particular one? If you only knew how many are lying here in each and every gully, then you would refrain from having this particular one, which is visible from the road, buried.” [1915-11-08-DE-001]

Another time, Roessler wrote that according to the latest reports there could be no doubt

that even those Armenians who were still alive, but who were camping in the open air in a state of disease and exhaustion and were not being cared for by anyone, were bitten by dogs. [1916-01-03-DE-002]

Digression: The Fate of the Catholics and Protestants:

The German Christians’ special interest in the Armenians lay in their brothers in faith, the Protestants and the Catholics. Even the German diplomats attempted to achieve exceptional measures for them, often under special pressure from denominational groups in Germany. Although the Germans were assured that the Catholic and Protestant Armenians would be excepted from deportations, these promises were not kept. Consul Roessler reports:

As the local Vali, Beschir Sami Bey, informed me today, the privileges granted to the Catholic Armenians have been revoked again. Everyone without any exception is to be deported. [1915-08-13-DE-001]

Ambassador Hohenlohe-Langenburg reports to Berlin:

Recently, the Porte promised that Catholic and Protestant Armenians will remain in their home towns; later, this privilege was revoked for Angora and Adana. Steps were then taken on our part to revoke the Porte’s last decision. Success seems doubtful. [1915-08-23-DE-012]

Consul Roessler reports from Aleppo:

Contrary to the clear order given by the Home Secretary that Protestant Armenians may stay, Djemal Pasha has given counterorders. [1915-08-25-DE-011]

Goeppert, the Legation Councillor sent for a short period to Constantinople, reports to his superiors in Berlin:

On the morning of 31 August, the Armenian-Catholic Patriarch paid a visit to His Excellency, presented the enclosed copy of a general deportation order given by the governor of Adana and requested that a recommendation be made that the deportation order concerning the Armenian Catholics in Adana and Angora be revoked. His Excellency then had an appointment made for himself with Talaat Bey, who came to the embassy in person and informed that he had already revoked this deportation order. He will send a copy of the counterorder tomorrow. [1915-08-31-DE-011]

Consul Roessler:

After my interview with him yesterday, the further transport of the Armenian Protestants from Aintab and Marash who are here was inofficially postponed for a week by the Wali in order to await the results of steps taken by His Excellency with Djemal Pasha. [1915-08-31-DE-012]

Mordtmann, the Consul General at the Embassy responsible for Armenian matters, quotes from a letter written by Willy Seeger, a German in Konia:

The Armenian Bishop is asking me to send a message to His Majesty, the Emperor saying that all Gregorian Armenians wish to become Protestants and are requesting the protection of the Emperor. [1915-08-21-DE-011]

The Catholic Centre politician and member of the Reichstag, Matthias Erzberger, attempted several times to become active on behalf of the Catholic Armenians. Erzberger reported that the Vatican representative in Constantinople, Monsignore Dolci, had assured the German pastor, Straubinger,

that the Foreign Secretary had promised him that the Catholic Armenians would be allowed to return. [1915-12-10-DE-002]

Talaat Pasha also assured Ambassador Wolff-Metternich,

that the Catholic and Protestant Armenians, who had by and large not been involved in any revolutionary movements, would be allowed to return to their homes as far as possible. [1915-12-18-DE-001]

Vice-Consul Hoffmann then reports from Aleppo:

It was intended to remove the Protestant and Catholic Armenians - although the latter are only partly of Armenian race – from the coastal areas only. Moreover, they were supposed to be allowed to choose a place to settle further inland. But this has remained theory only. Those Protestants and Catholics who have arrived in Aleppo are being sent on, just like the orthodox Armenians, although the order for their exception has not been revoked. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

A new possibility seemed to open up for some Armenians of non-Gregorian faith after the Minister of Naval Affairs, Djemal Pasha, had intervened on their behalf. Consul Roessler:

A number of Protestant and Catholic clerics refused to be converted. ... As they arrived in Tarsus after confronting various dangers, they met by chance Baron von Kress on his journey with Djemal Pasha to Constantinople. He introduced them to the Pasha who gave them a safe passage to Aleppo and later allocated their place of residence as partly Damascus and partly Jerusalem. [1916-01-31-DE-001]

But Centre politician Matthias Erzberger establishes in a memo:

The Catholic Armenians, whom some reckon as reaching a figure close to 100,000 while others consider the figure to be higher, ... in a national respect, they have never given cause for complaint. It is just their aversion to nationalistic endeavours, which is generally recognised, that has drawn the particular hatred of their fellow countrymen against them and especially great hostility against their patriarch who forbid nationalistic activities. ... Despite the loyal attitude of the Catholic Armenians and despite the assurances they were given, the same fate befell them as their fellow countrymen. ... After the promises given to the apostolic delegate by the Turkish government, it was hoped that the rest of the Catholic Armenians would be allowed to return. None of them, in fact, did so. [1916-03-03-DE-001]

Ambassador Wolff-Metternich speaks of occasional success:

The Turkish government ... had … repeatedly given assurances that the Armenians of Roman Catholic and Protestant faith would be exempted from the deportations as far as possible. Despite this promise, it was known to happen that these Armenians were also driven out of their homes. However, in individual cases it was possible to revoke the deportations which had already been initiated. [1916-05-11-DE-001]

A few weeks later Wolff-Metternich must once again qualify his report:

But they are also clearing up among the old established population and among the Catholic and Protestant Armenians, although the Porte has repeatedly assured that the latter will be spared. The remainder will be deported partly to Mesopotamia, partly converted to Islam. [1916-07-10-DE-001]

Those Turkish who were in charge made no distinction between the various denominations of the Armenians. Ernst I. Christoffel, the manager of Malatia, the home for the blind, took stock of the Protestant and Catholic Armenians’ dismal situation:

In the fall of 1915, a general pardon was issued for the Protestant and Catholic Armenians, probably at the instigation of the German and Austrian embassy, which was to protect them from being deported and leave them their possessions. This was only a let-down. It was mainly suppressed until the Protestant men were killed, nor did it have any practical significance for the women and children. ... With the exception of the German institutions, the preaching of God’s Word has ceased from the Black Sea as far as Syria; the Protestant parishes have been annihilated. Apart from individual exceptions (which could amount to 4 – 5), their preachers have been killed. Their chapels and schools have been taken away, desecrated or destroyed. The same applies to the Catholic and Gregorian Armenian parishes. [1917-07-14-DE-001]

A small parish of Catholic Armenians was kept up in Angora, today the capital city of Ankara. This was possibly due to the intervention of Dr. David, the Catholic army chaplain in Angora, who had reported to influential Centre politician Erzberger that

arrangements are being made to initiate a new exile based on former experiences of the lower police divisions and at their explicit affirmation. … [There was a] religious persecution. At any rate, reasons of a military nature are completely out of the question as it concerns almost solely women and children and, in addition, Angora lies as far as possible from every war zone. As far as I can see, Angora is the only parish among all those Catholic parishes hit by strict measures for which reasons of a military nature cannot even be put forward as a pretext. [1917-06-20-DE-001]

Secretary of State Zimmermann then requested of the embassy that

the Turk[ish] gov[ernment] by informed in a friendly fashion of the events in Angora and the expectation be put forward that it will protect the Catholic Armenians there from attempts at forced conversions and other persecutions carried out by the local authorities. [1917-06-25-DE-001]

Kuehlmann, the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople, reported back on the basis of his own investigations that the government was

prepared without doubt to avoid more severe action against the Armenian Catholics. … The question … must … be raised whether it seems advisable at all to appoint a German Catholic priest to care for the spiritual welfare of Armenian Catholics, and this all the more because only Ottoman subjects are concerned here. The results of this activity on the part of a German priest will surely be constant difficulties with the Turkish government. [1917-07-09-DE-001]

(V) From the Collection Points to the Death Camps

1) The Collection Points

According to German reports, there were several collection points for the deported Armenians. In October 1915, Vice-Consul Hoffmann reports from Alexandrette on some of them after he represented Roessler in Aleppo, thereby getting a good idea of the situation, because according to Hoffmann,

thanks to its central position, Aleppo is still the focal point of the deportation of the Armenians and, therefore, a particularly suitable location for gaining an overall picture of the occurrences.

The nearest destination up to now for the deportees arriving from the north and north-east were the stations Tell-Abiad, Rass-el-Ain and (for Aintab and Marasch) Aktsche-Koejuenli on the Baghdad Railway, then Aleppo . According to reports by the government, at the end of October about 20000 people were accommodated in Aleppo; only a few of them were in individual homes (at their own expense), the largest part in caravansaries (”khans”) or in open field camps on the outskirts of the town. The convoys arriving from Central, North and West Anatolia are streaming into the collection camp near Ma’mureh (alongside the Baghdad Railway in the Vilayet Adana) and on to the one in Katma (48 kms to the north-west of Aleppo by the Baghdad Railway). By the end of October, according to official government reports, about 40000 deportees had collected there.

The government is providing no shelter whatsoever for these collection camps. The more wealthy among the deportees have a small tent with them, the poorer ones are having to make do with improvised roofs made of mats, bedding, etc.. In the way of provisions, the government supplies 100 drams of flour (= 320 grams) per day and per head, but only irregularly. Fuel for fires is not supplied; as there are no woods near the collection camps dry thistles are usually the only type of fuel available. As far as health is concerned, there are no facilities whatsoever. In particular, there are no latrine contrivances at all, not even the most primitive. There is not even a hole in the ground provided for this purpose. For the 40000 people near Katma, one single source provides water, but those living closest to it are preventing others from getting to it. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

This situation did not yet change fundamentally during the following two months, but Roessler intimated that the concentration camps were only a temporary solution:

In November and at the beginning of December large numbers of deportees were to be found along the railway route from Adana to Aleppo, in particular in Islahiye and in Katma. Here they had to be removed for military reasons to keep the military route free and to prevent the army being infected with diseases. The transportation was first done by train to Ras-ul-Ain. But as the deportees in Ras-ul-Ain were doomed to die and also as the railway could not cope with transporting the Armenians simultaneously with the soldiers, the Armenians were then sent on foot to Akhterin and then sent on from Akhterin to Bab. ... There it would have been possible to obtain provisions for them from the station in Akhtermin. But ... those poor people were sent on from Bab to Der Zor. [1916-02-09-DE-001]

For a long time Aleppo itself was without doubt the most important collection camp. Consul Roessler had already reported in July:

The number of those currently on the road in Aleppo alone is estimated at an average of several thousands. [1915-07-27-DE-001]

Two months later Roessler reports on new trains:

The crowds coming from the east have already been robbed of their cash when they enter Aleppo. Those coming from the north and the north-west are, for the most part, in a better state; many of them have not had to walk, they still have their possessions and their money. But, in time, their means must also peter out. It is to be feared that sooner or later, if they are not allowed to stay in the towns, large numbers of these exiles will suffer the same fate of starvation as those crowds that passed through here via Ras ul Ain. [1915-09-27-DE-014]

Then the procession of deportees through Aleppo stopped. Vice-Consul Hoffmann reports that the Turkish authorities have

become aware of the bad impression that these miserable convoys make on the people of Aleppo and have re-routed them away from the town. [A witness:] I myself was a witness as to how the (Muslim) leader of a convoy of ten carts which, despite the re-routing, was making its way through a busy part of the town, was arrested by the police with severe reproaches. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

Consul Roessler also reported on other camps, such as, for example, Katma:

The concentration camp near Katma portrayed an indescribable view of insufficient hygienic facilities. The wanderers were at all stages of health and mobility: from the barefooted walker and the almost starving, who with great effort stumbled along, to the confused and silent, who just sat down on the road, to those who possessed well-kept footwear or pulled carts with various household articles. The difference can be explained by the distance which each had accomplished. [1915-11-08-DE-001]

Concerning the collection camp of Islahiye, Roessler was able to report:

The Armenian assembly camp in Islahiye, despite being defended by German engineers, was subject to 6 weeks of raids by Kurds, during which even women and children were wantonly butchered to death. [1916-01-03-DE-002]

2) The Death Trains along the Euphrates River

a) Settlement Attempts

There had obviously been attempts during the first weeks of deportation to settle the Armenians in Muslim villages, even if they were scattered. Thus, Roessler reports from Aleppo:

The transportation of women and children to the country is still continuing. They are not allowed to enter even such small provincial towns as Bab, Membidj Idlib; instead, they are scattered among 3 to 4 families in the Muslim villages, where they are cut off from all help and must perish. [1915-06-12-DE-013]

Ambassador Wangenheim confirms his consul’s report:

Here, the same as in other districts the inhabitants are being scattered around the interior of the country and resettled with the Muslims, partly in areas which are far from one another, as for example the residents of Zeitun, who have been sent partly to the areas around Konia, partly to Der Zor by the Euphrates river. [1915-06-17-DE-003]

Little can be found in the German sources on the fate of these people who were originally settled. In the spring of 1916, the German nun, Paula Schaefer, reported on her sphere of work:

The poverty in both Marash and the surrounding area is indescribable, especially on the Basardjik plain where the Muhadjirs from Erzerum were settled. However, they would die of hunger if we did not assist them in some manner. [1916-04-28-DE-002]

Roessler describes other, earlier settlement attempts and the consequence:

3000 Armenian widows who were previously sent from Aleppo to Killis and were in relatively good keeping there, have recently been deported to Deïr Zor where the majority of them die. [1916-01-12-DE-011]

Roessler is able to report the following on further cases from the surrounding area:

Armenians who, with the government’s permission, had been settled for several months on estates in the country, are now being deported further; perhaps 10000 people. [1916-02-10-DE-001]

A German who was sent by Roessler to Deir-es-Zor reports on a relatively important settlement in Sabcha:

Sabcha ... the first settlers' station. Formerly having several hundred inhabitants, it presently registers 7000 people (statement by the Nahié Mudir). ... the settlement has now grown towards the mountain crest … in streets that have been laid out straight at right angles; thousands of hands working with the greatest zeal; long rows of undressed stones are stored there … over 100 new houses have been erected. A further 250 houses are to be completed shortly. The first settlers arrived from Setun in July and August. The authorities have given the land for building and permitted stones to be cut. ... The settlers have set up a smithy, the sale of meat, 1 plumber and 2-3 small general stores. Many Armenians die from illness. Those in the camps, forced to protect themselves, banish the sick – mostly women – from the camp and leave them to nature. Without food, a doctor or care they lie whimpering and begging for bread until a kind fate lets them die … (approx. 40 dreadfully disfigured people). I counted 12 corpses washed ashore across from the crossing point; their dreadful smell does not rouse a single soul to bury them. According to the statement by the head of the district council, many more thousands of "settlers" are coming. His actual words were, "We let them come! To cultivate the land." Up- and downstream there is, however, fertile land for the survivors. [1915-11-16-DE-002]

Sabcha was, at best, an attempt at a settlement which was soon given up again. Less than one year later, Vice-Consul Hoffmann quotes a German officer who has travelled the Euphrates stretch for a long time and knows it well:

Of the largest stations, Sabcha has been completely emptied [1916-08-29-DE-001]

b) The Death Marches in the South and South-East

The streams of refugees divided beyond Aleppo and east of the provincial capital. While a smaller part of the deported Armenians was driven on in the direction of Palastina, those responsible for the genocide directed the larger part along the Euphrates river (first through Aleppo, later by-passing Aleppo via Bab and Meskene) to Deir-es-Zor and also further in the direction of Baghdad as well as Mossul, furthermore via Tell Abiad and Ras ul Ain to Mossul. Vice-Consul Hoffmann describes the routes:

From the collective camps ... of Aleppo, ... for the past few months, the deportees are being transported on to the places intended for their ” resettlement”. At the beginning of the deportations, i.e. 2 - 4 months ago, the nearer points in Syria, such as Hama, Homs, Bab, Damascus, served as destinations. However, since the beginning of October - expressly stipulated in a poster displayed on walls in Aleppo - only the stations Rakka and Der-es-Zor by the Euphrates, as well as Hauran (Kerak) to the west, and only very recently Ras-el-Ain (last station of the Baghdad Railway in the direction of Mossul) are being allowed as destination points. According to estimates made by a senior official in the Vilayet Aleppo, by the middle of October about 300000 persons had been sent on towards the south and south-east for the purpose of ”resettlement”. ... Once at the destinations for resettlement - i.e. usually: Rakka, Der-es-Zor, Kerak, Mossul (approached from Rass-el-Ain) - the deportees are left to their own devices (according to statements made by the senior Vilayet officials mentioned above). As this source tells us, there is a lack of means and officials for ensuring proper resettlement. It was therefore unavoidable that all the deportees perished. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

The Germans have only a few reports from Palastina , also because only a smaller part of the Armenians had been deported directly to the south of Aleppo. At any rate, the figures quoted by the German consulates give a break-down on the situation:

Consul Loytved-Hardegg reports from Damascus:

Until now, 3000 Armenians have been brought to the Kerak area on the Hedyas train. 60000 Armenians are to be sent to this area and Hauran. [1915-08-26-DE-012]

The consulate in Damascus reports to the embassy:

About 2000 families with 5 members each in the Vilayet Damascus. [1916-05-03-DE-001]

Consul Loytved-Hardegg in Damascus reports on a conversation with Hussein Kasim Bey, the commissioner responsible for the Armenians:

In his estimation there are 60000 Armenians between Aleppo and the Hedschas. [1916-05-30-DE-001]

In turn, the Consul General in Jerusalem reports after a visit from the Patriarch:

For the number of Armenians settled in East Jordan, the Patriarch gave a figure of 15000 in Hauran and 3 to 4000 in Iraq. [1916-06-26-DE-001]

Sister Beatrice Rohner reported again on the suffering of these deportees:

The Armenians staying there, especially those who were deported from there to the villages in the Hauran District, are all exposed to severe hardship. [1916-06-17-DE-001]

Beatrice Rohner received similar reports from Hama. A preacher wrote to her:

Among the 20000 deportees staying here, there are 15000 in need of support; in Hama itself, there are 1000, and 6000 in the surrounding villages who do not even have a crust of bread. Many die of hunger. [1916-06-17-DE-001]

Consul Loytved-Hardegg from Damascus gives a final overview on the deported Armenians in his area of responsibility:

In May of this year, the number of Armenians between Aleppo and the Hedschas was estimated at 60000 persons by the Chairman of the Emigration Committee, Wali Hussein Kasim Bey (retired), who is considered to be sincere and a friend of the Armenians. Of these, about half will have died in the meantime. [1917-04-07-DE-001]

Concerning the transports to Tell Abiad and Ras ul Ain , the German engineer, Bastendorff wrote about Ras ul Ain:

New transports arrived daily; thus, the number of emigrants in Ras-el-Ain surpassed 10000 within a very short time. [1916-01-03-DE-002]

Lechnig, a clerk in the consulate, reports on the camp at Tel Abiad:

The Armenian camp comprises about one thousand people, formerly there are said to have been up to 5000. 600 are camping in a large courtyard, surrounded by bare mud walls, measuring about 80 x 100 metres and belonging to a khan, with rooms opening up to the outside. So these 600 are without a roof or any cooking facilities. 400 are camped down on the outside of the khan.
These deportees are the remnants of various convoys from the north. Almost all of them are elderly women and children. According to my investigations, the men and any boys over the age of 11, have been separated off during the journey, led away and probably murdered; the young women and girls over 13 or 14 years were either raped and murdered or sold by their guards or Kurds or simply given away. ... Those camping outside appear still to have some vitality. Those lying in the yard are mostly so exhausted that they cannot stand up any longer, but sit around quite impassively, waiting for their death. An exhausted whimpering for water and bread is the only sound they make.
There were no epidemics in the camp. According to the gravedigger up to 40, on average 25 to 30 persons, die each day of exhaustion, hunger, dysentery etc.
Burials take place in mass graves, which are dug about 100 metres from the centre of the camp. During my first visit I saw two open ditches, one containing 16 to 20 naked corpses all thrown on top of each other (e.g. both legs of a female body were stretched in the air, while the invisible torso was hidden by other bodies), in the second, which was only half full, were 8 bodies, also naked, and all so emaciated that it was hardly possible to recognise their gender. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

But the true horror route is the Euphrates route to Deir-es-Zor. Vice-Consul Holstein reports from there:

The misery of these people is indescribable; women and children are dying of hunger every day; their clothes decay on their bodies. [1915-07-21-DE-012]

Roessler reports that the government has ordered

that the Armenians from Asia Minor are to travel to Der es Zor and Mossul. [1915-09-27-DE-014]

In one of the first reports on these death routes, Roessler writes:

Dr. Schacht, a captain in the medical corps, who chose the route along the river on his way from here to Baghdad, wrote to me on 3 November from Der Zor, "I have seen many bad things along the way. What people are saying is true." [1915-11-16-DE-002]

One of the Germans sent by Roessler to Deir-es-Zor reports on the deportation routes:

Supplies of provisions with the transports have not been arranged, although this would be possible. Watering spots containing stale, clean water could easily be set up for those permanently passing by. Thus, apart from their burdens, their children, their sick and their illnesses, the deported must also lug along food and even water for the long marches. ... For months, all of the wayside places of rest have been turned into the most disgusting state by masses of human excrements, garbage, scraps and manure, and this will not change until the final troop has passed through. ... Abu Hrere on the river Euphrates ... equipped with a Handji and a shopkeeper only a short while ago … at present a huge human pile of fertiliser, ... a real place of death. [1915-11-16-DE-002]

Roessler:

An Armenian who had the courage to go to Bab from time to time in disguise in order to bring the poverty stricken a support allowance (German sisters have not been allowed any activity outside of Aleppo), reported that at the end of January during the 2 ½ days of his stay in Bab, 1029 Armenians had died. The worst thing about it was when the weak and ill were forced to get up to walk the next part of the journey. They were driven with whips, their tents were even set alight. He witnessed how a woman was beaten to death with a club. [1916-02-09-DE-001]

The German Consul, Wilhelm Litten, travelled from Baghdad to Aleppo and describes the route in the direction opposite to the deportation trains:

Beyond Der Zor begans the Trail of Horror. As far as I could see, it was divided into two sections: The first section from Der Zor to Sabha, along which I could gain an impression of what had happened here from the position of the bodies, the state of their decay and their clothing as well as from the rags of linen, pieces of clothing and parts of household utensils that were strewn in the road: How those latecomers had been wandering alone in the desert, had finally collapsed and with their faces tortured and distorted with pain had met their death in despair and how others were relieved more quickly thanks to the severe night frost and passed away peacefully in their sleep, how some had been unclothed by Arabian robbers, whereas the clothing of others had been torn from their bodies in rags by dogs and other vermin, how others had only lost their shoes and outerwear and others had only a short time ago finally collapsed and died next to their baggage, completely clothed ... probably during the last transportation, while the bloody and half-bleached skeletons remind them of previous transports. In the second section from Sabha to Meskene, where I no longer needed to guess the individual fates but had to behold the misery with my own eyes: a large transport of Armenians passed my by just beyond Sabha, driven by the gendarmerie guards to walk faster and faster, and then the whole misery of the stragglers became apparent in live form. I saw by the wayside hungry, thirsting, sick, dying, freshly deceased, mourning besides fresh bodies, and those who could not part quickly enough from their relatives, endangered their own lives, because the next station or oasis was three days march away for those on foot. Weakened by hunger, disease, pain they staggered on, fell a nd lay still on the ground. ... Not until I was between Meskene and Aleppo did I see no more Armenians and no more bodies since the transports did not touch Aleppo at all, but were re-routed via Bab. [1916-02-09-DE-001]

The only German consul to travel on this death route along the Euphrates closes his observations with these remarks:

I have seen with my own eyes about 100 bodies and almost just as many fresh graves on the road from Der Zor to Meskene. I have not counted the graves which in some places were combined to form cemeteries. I have seen around 20000 Armenians. I have restricted all my estimations of numbers to those I have actually seen for myself. I have never turned off the road and, for example in Der Sor, I did not visit the more distant parts of the town. So the number of really deported persons must be considerably higher. Furthermore, I have not seen those who were on the other bank of the Euphrates. The route along which I travelled, is said to be only part of the march. To the north of Meskene in the direction of Bab and to the north of Der Sor in the direction of Rebel Ain there are said to be significant camps where Armenians are awaiting their further deportation. It is therefore not out of the question that travellers along the same route a few weeks later, will count ten times as many bodies as I did. Everywhere in Turkey where the desert sand borders on occupied areas, similar tragic dramas such as these are said to be being played at this very time, with hundreds of thousands of actors. [1916-02-09-DE-001]

Consul Roessler:

News received on 19^th April told us that in every station between Aleppo and Der Zor, i.e. in Meskene, Abu Hrere, Hamam, Sabkha, 50–100 people are dying every day, most of them as a result of hunger. [1916-04-27-DE-001]

Sister Beatrice Rohner:

The state of the deportees simply defies description. There can, of course, no longer be any question of household goods, beds, clothes: everything has been sold or eaten. Today, the formerly wealthy do not even have enough bread every day. They go out in crowds and graze the fields (eat grass). If there is a camel or any other sort of pack animal in the vicinity which is dying, they fall on it and fight each other for it, just as if it were a treasure. Hundreds of them have died of hunger, thousands of typhus fever. Children who have lost their homes and their parents wander about everywhere. [1916-04-28-DE-002]

Beatrice Rohner gathered from a letter

that once again thousands were deported from Der Zor to Mossul. The roads are supposedly littered with bodies. Hundreds of those deported all the way down to Ana are dying of hunger. [1916-06-17-DE-001]

Beatrice Rohner reports that Wartan Yeramaie, a preacher, wrote from Haman:

All the crowds of deportees who have been forced back along the road are being driven towards the south. It is like a flooding human current. The misery is indescribable. It has been known to happen that the starving fry the flesh from the dead bodies … they search through horse manure for barley grains … There are 2500 tents in Abuhrere, but they must all move on, often without a bite of bread. [1916-06-17-DE-001]

The consulate in Mossul reports:

Due to heavy mortality as well as their constantly being moved on and new arrivals, the number of Armenians deported to Vilayet Mossul is constantly changing. At present, there are about 4 – 5000 deported Armenians from Erzerum, Bitlis, Ras el Ain and Deir Zor in Vilayet Mossul, mainly women and children. It is expected that this figure for the number of Armenians deported to this Vilayet will remain constant for a longer period in future. [1916-06-23-DE-001]

Roessler:

A high-ranking German official told me on 18 July that the road from Sabkha via Hammam to Meskene is completely strewn with the remains of pieces of clothing. It looked as if an army had retreated along it. [1916-07-29-DE-001]

Vartan Geranian, the Armenian preacher from Hamam, informs Sister Rohner:

Many families have not eaten anything for days and do not have the courage to go begging. The number of families such as these is increasing from day to day. How will all this end? If it continues like this for long, then the largest part of the population, perhaps all of them, will perish through hunger and deprivation. The people fight for the blood of slaughtered animals which has poured out onto the ground, they nibble at bones they find on manure heaps, they search through horse manure in the hope of finding a few grains of barley and devour them ravenously. They eat the flesh of animals and humans who have died by the wayside. Many of them who cannot stand it any longer throw themselves in the Euphrates, taking their children with them. [1916-07-29-DE-001]

Vice-Consul Hoffmann quotes a German officer who has travelled along the Euphrates route for a long time and knows it well:

The road from Aleppo to Der-es-Sor (which the deportation convoys have been using for many months) now presents a different picture: it has become relatively quiet. It is true that at the stations closest to Aleppo there are still fairly large Armenians camps. But further to the south, away from Meskene, the camps are significantly reduced. [1916-08-29-DE-001]

Vice-Consul Hoffmann gives an account of the assessment of a German who visited all of the camps:

Along the road by the banks of the Euphrates, as far as Der-es-Sor there are now only small camps of about 1000 - 2000 people each. … The government is doing nothing at all to feed those who are placed in the camps. These are usually far from any towns and villages. For this reason, it is difficult to provide any food for them, even for those who still have some money. Provisions are limited to whatever the Arab farmers bring every day to the camp in the way of bread, melons etc., i.e. an absolutely insufficient amount. Many are living solely on melons that grow abundantly in those areas. They even eat them with the peel and seeds. When I distributed bread in a small camp, the people behaved like wild animals. I had to flee and leave the distributions to the gendarmes. Those who have no money, have to starve. ... As long as the deportees have got money, they are allowed to stay in their camps. When the money is used up, they are deported in the direction of Der-es-Sor. In doing so, families are ruthlessly torn apart. Near El-Hammam 6 - 700 Armenian men are working on government buildings without their families. By the way, they also look starved. The inhabitants of the camps are comprised of members of all social classes together. During my visits, I was often addressed in French, English and German, in German by pupils of German schools and orphanages. Many refugees try to flee to other camps which are nearer to towns and villages and therefore offer opportunities for nourishment. The gendarmes are constantly on the lookout for such refugees. Those who are arrested, are considered as lost. The winter’s cold will do the rest to finish off the deportees. [1916-09-05-DE-001]

Even when the deportations had, for all practical purposes, finished at the beginning of 1917, Roessler reports:

At some places along the route, the remaining Armenians are used to build roads, bridges and houses. [1917-02-14-DE-001]

Roessler writes that in Rakka a representative of the American consulate had

personally handed out at least a quarter-pound note, and in some cases more, to each of the 6000 deportees. Despite this, he is of the opinion that a very large number of them will die of hunger and deprivation. For there is now hunger, not only among the Armenians, but also among the population of Rakka itself, so that the distribution of food by the government to the deportees has almost completely stopped. … The deportees live pressed together closely. Their clothes are in rags. Typhus has broken out among them so that at present there are 20 deaths every day. [1917-02-14-DE-001]

The largest town on the death route and a place of settlement for some time is Deir-es-Zor . As early as July 1915, Roessler reports on a concentration of Armenian deportees in the desert town:

In Der-Zor there are 15000 whose feeding by the government is completely inadequate. [1915-07-30-DE-011]

A German sent by Roessler to Deir-es-Zor makes the following report on the town:

The main place of settlement is Der Zor. The entrance alone immediately displays the settlers' main occupation: burying the dead, dull brooding, laborious, sick, half-dead movement. Der Zor itself is not an ugly city, with lovely, wide streets. Previously 14000 inhabitants, presently 25-30000. There are no organisational arrangements for the huge, accumulated mass of people. There is insufficient food (for hours the bakers have no bread), a steam-driven mill clacks insufficiently day and night, a shortage of bread and vegetables was determined. 3 hospitals are crowded with over a thousand sick people. 1 local doctor, 1 government doctor, pharmacy almost empty. The local doctor just left town for a few days on a business trip. The mortality rate is 150-200 persons per day (in the words of the local doctor). Only in this way is it possible that thousands of settlers can still be brought in. A large camp above and below the town. On the left bank of the river next to the pontoon bridge masses of dying people have been camped in huts made of foliage typical for this area. They are the forgotten whose only liberator is death.
No linguistic expression of thought can even come close to describing the reality of this human misery, so indescribable are the occurrences there. And this tragical heap is continually building up. According to the statements of other pedestrians, hundreds of unburied corpses, dragged off, then lie further away! The gendarme on duty answered, "What should we do? they all die by themselves."
The authorities carefully clean all the corners and streets every day, build new residential areas such as in Sabcha, distribute money among the people as well as bread and flour and yet, with some exceptions, death is preferential to life. ... The mortality rate is 150-200 persons per day (in the words of the local doctor). [1915-11-16-DE-002]

Consul Wilhelm Litten reports on Deir-es-Zor:

This is the largest town along the route. Here were many Armenians, more than 2000 to be sure. All the houses and khans were full of them. ... Many women, delousing themselves. Also many young girls and small children. On the streets of the clean little town there are many Armenians of all ages and of both sexes in Turkish farming clothes, but also many in European civilian clothing, obviously belonging to higher classes. Young girls in well-fitting European clothes. ... Der Zor is a friendly little town with straight streets and pavements. The Armenians were enjoying complete freedom there, could do just as they liked ... also in the way of food which they had to buy themselves. Anyone who had no money, could not buy anything. [1916-02-09-DE-001]

Consul Roessler reports:

As I learned on 20^thApril from a Turkish officer on his way from Der Zor, the Mutesarrif of Der Zor has received the order only to leave as many Armenians there as correspond to 10 percent of the local population, but to send the rest on to Mossul. The local population of Der Zor could be perhaps 20000. The number of Armenians sent there is assessed at being at least 15000, so that a minimum of 13000 will have to be turned away. [1916-04-27-DE-001]

Three months later Roessler reports:

On 16 July, news was received from Der Zor that the Armenians had been ordered to continue their march. On 17^th , all clergymen and community leaders were arrested. By 22 July, so the order, all Armenians were to have taken to the road again. After the Central Government had previously decreed that only as many Armenians were allowed to remain in Der Zor as made up 10 percent of the total number of inhabitants, now the remainder were to be eradicated, an amendment which is possibly connected with the fact that the humane Mutesarrif Suad Bey has been transferred to Baghdad and a merciless successor has been appointed. [1916-07-29-DE-001]

Araxia Djibedjian, an Armenian woman, writes in a letter from Deir-es-Zor to Beatrice Rohner:

The people are slaughtering and eating stray dogs. Recently they even slaughtered a dying man and ate him; that is what I was told by an eye witness. One woman cut off her hair to sell it for bread. I saw how a woman ate the dried blood of a dead animal on the street. Up to now they all ate grass, but that has also dried up in the meantime. Last week we were in a house where the inhabitants had not eaten for 3 days. The woman held a small child in her arms and tried to give it some bread crumbs to eat. But the child was so weak, it couldn’t swallow any more, so it choked and died in her arms. [1916-07-29-DE-001]

Vice-Consul Hoffmann quotes a German officer who has travelled along the Euphrates route for a long time and knows it well:

Of the largest stations ... Der-es-Sor only has a few hundred craftsmen left who were working for the troops, whereas at the latter place only 8 weeks ago many thousands (estimated by another side as being 20000) were still in the camp. The spiritual leaders such as teachers, lawyers, clergymen are said to have been taken recently from the camps and imprisoned in government buildings (most likely prisons). The others - also those who had actually begun really to settle in the more northerly stations - had disappeared. The official version was that they had been sent on to Mussul (i.e. a route along which very few of them had any chance of reaching their destination alive), but according to the general opinion of the people they had been murdered in the small valleys to the south-east of Der-es-Sor, on the strip between the Euphrates and Chabur rivers. The Armenians are said to have been led away in groups of a few hundred at a time and butchered to death by Circassians who had been especially commissioned to do so. ... the nomads have left that corner between the Euphrates and the Chabur, supposedly because of the activities described. [1916-08-29-DE-001]

Vice-Consul Hoffmann gives an account of the assessment of a German who visited all of the camps:

The 20 - 30000 Armenians, whom I saw during my last journey in Der-es-Sor and who began to breathe a sigh of relief under the humane attitude of the Mutessarrif, have meanwhile, since his replacement a few months ago by the present brutal Mutessarrif, Sekki Bey, a Circassian, been deported, except for some craftsmen and about 1200 children. As I have heard, they have been sent to the area of the Chabur river. There, according to general opinion, they will be massacred or will perish somehow. The 1200 children mentioned above have led a miserable existence. It is obvious from their facial appearance that they are suffering from starvation. [1916-09-05-DE-001]

c) Acts of Annihilation

The Chabur river, which flows into the Euphrates south-east of Deir-es-Zor, was indeed to become one of the most gruesome places of death for the deported Armenians who had survived until that time. But it was not the only gruesome place.

Another place was Tell Ermen ; as early as July 1915, Ambassador Wangenheim reports on its fate:

In a report dated the 8^th inst., the Imperial Consul in Aleppo reports the following: “Major von Mikusch has returned from Mossul and reports the following: about a week ago, Kurds massacred Armenians in Tell Ermen and a neighbouring Armenian village. The large churches have been destroyed. Mr. von Mikusch personally saw 200 bodies. [1915-07-09-DE-001]

Vice-Consul Hoffmann includes observations made by his colleague Holstein, who reported that in Tell-Ermen

everything had been destroyed here, except for 15 to 20 people who were able to flee. Vice-Consul Holstein even discovered remains, such as dismembered heads and limbs, in the church. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

It was not Holstein’s only discovery on his journey to Aleppo. Vice-Consul Hoffmann writes:

On the sparsely populated route between Mossul and Rass-el-Ain, Vice Consul Holstein found five totally ravaged Armenian villages, including Tell-Ermen, which was inhabited by 2000 Armenians. ... In the other four villages, almost everything has been desolated. Between Tell-Ermen and Rass-el-Ain he stumbled upon five natural cisterns full of bodies, but he was not able to determine whether these had been battered to death or butchered. Along the whole route to the south of Nisibin he saw all the Muslims running around with scimitars. ”Ermen [Armenian]” was their only thought. [1916-01-03-DE-001]

Consul Roessler reports on another massacre not far from Tell Ermen:

On 6^th April it became known to us here that massacres had occurred again near Ras ul Ain. One piece of news said that the largest part of the concentration camp, consisting of 14000 people, has been destroyed, whereas, according to another communication, 400 families had been led out of the camp and murdered en route. After hearing the results of the reliable enquiries of a German who spent several days in Ras ul Ain ... I am forced to assume the following: The camp can now only consist of 2000 exiles. For a period of one whole month, 300 to 500 of them have been led out of the camp daily or almost daily and massacred about 10 kms away from Ras ul Ain. The bodies were thrown into the river, which ... at that time of year was running very high. [1916-04-27-DE-001]

One of Roessler’s reports gives an inkling of what happened in other deportation towns along the murderous Euphrates:

The Turkish military pharmacist in Meskene, who has been stationed there for the past 6 months, told him that in Meskene alone 55000 Armenians had been buried. [1916-07-29-DE-001]

Vice-Consul Hoffmann learned the following about those Armenians stranded in Deir-es-Zor:

As far as the fate of those deportees, who are sent on further from Der-es-Sor, is concerned, who, following official announcements, are said to be heading for Mossul, I have enquired with the Imperial Consulate as to how many deportees are estimated to have arrived from Der-es-Sor over the past few months. According to information from that source, on 15th April four transports left Der-es-Sor along two routes and 19000 altogether met up again in a camp by the river Chabur. On 22nd May, i.e. 5 weeks later, about 2500 people from these transports, including several hundred men, have arrived in Mossul. … No new transports have arrived in Mossul for the past 3 ½ months. This fact must confirm the opinion of the people of Der-es-Sor and the corresponding actual details, that under the rule of the new Circassian Mutessarrif of Der-es-Sor, short work is made of those who are deported further, more recently in the place where the Euphrates and the Chabur meet. [1916-09-05-DE-001]

Roessler was able to obtain late confirmation. He sent his superiors

a memorandum by Mr. Buente, a certified engineer, on observations made during a journey along the river Khabur from 1 to 6 April. There is no doubt that the large numbers of human skulls and bones to be found there are from the Armenian massacres which took place the previous July and August: ... ”In the period from 1 to 6 April I went up the Chabur on the river Euphrates together with Captain Loeschebrand and Sergeant Langenegger from Buseir and found large amounts of bleached human skulls and skeletons on the left bank; some of the skulls had bullet holes. In some places we found stakes, also with human bones and skulls. The largest accumulations were across from the Kishla Sheddade. The population spoke of 12000 Armenians who were massacred, shot or drowned here alone.“ [1917-05-14-DE-001]