Chapter VIII: Story of Walter M. Geddes

“I left here on the sixteenth of September, 1915, for Aleppo.
I first saw the Armenians at Afion Karahissar where there
was a big encampment—probably of ten thousand people—who had
come down from the Black Sea. They were encamped in tents
made of material of all descriptions, and their condition was
deplorable.

“The next place I saw them was at Konia, also a large
encampment. There I saw the first brutality; I saw a woman and
her baby separated from her husband; he was put on our train
while she was forcibly held behind and kept from getting on the
train.

“The next place where there was a large encampment was at
Osmanieh where there was said to be about fifty thousand; their
condition was terrible. They were camped on both sides of
the railway track, extending fully half a mile on each side.
Here they had two wells from whence they could get water, one
of which was very far from the encampment, the other at the
railway station platform. At daybreak, the Armenians came in
crowds, women and children and old men, to get to the well to
get water. They fought among themselves for a place at the
well, and the gendarmes, to keep them in order, whipped several
people. I saw women and children repeatedly struck with whips
and sticks in the hands of the gendarmes. Later I had occasion
to pass through the camp on the way to the town of Osmanieh
and had an opportunity to see the condition of the people.
They were living in tents like those above described and their
condition was miserable. The site of the encampment had been
used several times by different caravans of Armenians and no
attempt at sanitation had been made by either the Turks or the
Armenians themselves, with the result that the ground was in
a deplorable condition, and the stench in the early morning
was beyond description. At Osmanieh, they were selling their
possessions in order to obtain money to buy food. One old man
begged me to buy his silver snuff-box for a piaster in order
that he might be able to buy some bread.

“From Osmanieh, I traveled by carriage to Rajo and passed
thousands of Armenians en route to Aleppo. They were going
in ox-carts, on horseback, donkeys and on foot, the most
of them children, women and old men. I spoke to several of
these people, some of whom had been educated in the American
Mission Schools. They told me that they had traveled for two
months. They were without money and food and several expressed
their wish that they could die rather than go on and endure
the sufferings that they were undergoing. The people on the
road were carrying with them practically all their household
possessions and those who had no carts or animals were carrying
them on their backs. It was not unusual to see a woman with
a big pack wrapped up in a mattress and a little child a few
months old on the top of the pack. They were mostly bareheaded,
and their faces were swollen from the sun and exposure. Many
had no shoes on, and some had their feet wrapped in old pieces
of rags, which they had torn from their clothing.

“At Intily there was an encampment of about ten thousand and
at Kadma a large encampment of one hundred and fifty thousand.
At this place, adjacent to their encampment, were Turkish
troops who exacted “backshish” from them before they would
let them go on the road to Aleppo. Many who had no money had
had to stay in this camp since their arrival there about two
months before. I spoke with several Armenians here and they
told me the same story of brutal treatment and robbery at the
hands of the gendarmes in charge, as I had heard all along the
road. They had to go at least half a mile for water from this
encampment, and the condition of the camp was filthy.

“From Kadma on to Aleppo I witnessed the worst sights of the
whole trip. Here the people began to play out in the intense
heat and no water, and I passed several who were prostrate,
actually dying of thirst. One woman whom I assisted was
in a deplorable condition and unconscious from thirst and
exhaustion, and farther on I saw two young girls who had become
so exhausted that they had fallen on the road and lay with
their already swollen faces exposed to the sun.

“The road for a great distance was being repaired and covered
with cracked stones; on one side of the road was a footpath,
but many of the Armenians were so dazed from fatigue and
exposure that they did not see this footpath and were
walking—many barefooted—on the cracked stones, their feet, as a
result, bleeding.

“The destination of all these Armenians is Aleppo. Here they
are kept crowded in all available vacant houses, khans,
Armenian churches, courtyards and open lots. Their condition
in Aleppo is beyond description. I personally visited several
of the places where they were kept and found them starving and
dying by the hundreds every day.

“In one vacant house, which I visited, I saw women and
children and men all in the same room lying on the floor so
close together that it was impossible to walk between them.
Here they had been for months, those who had survived, and the
condition of the floor was filthy.

“The British Consulate was filled with these exiles, and
from this place the dead were removed almost every hour.
Coffin-makers throughout the city were working late into the
night, making rough boxes for the dead whose relatives or
friends could afford to give them decent burial.

“Most of the dead were simply thrown into two-wheeled carts
which made daily rounds to all the places where the Armenians
were concentrated. These carts were open at first but afterward
covers were made for them.

“An Armenian physician whom I know and who is treating hundreds
of these suffering Armenians who have become ill through
exposure on the trip, hunger and thirst, told me that there are
hundreds dying daily in Aleppo from starvation and the result
of the brutal treatment and exposure that they have undergone
on the journey from their native places.

“Many of these suffering Armenians refused alms, saying that
the little money so obtained will only prolong their sufferings
and they prefer to die. From Aleppo, those who are able to pay
are sent by train to Damascus, those who have no money are sent
over the road to the interior toward Deir-El-Zor.

“In Damascus I found conditions practically the same as in
Aleppo; and here hundreds are dying every day. From Damascus,
they are sent still farther south into the Hauran where their
fate is unknown. Several Turks whom I interviewed told me that
the motive of this exile was to exterminate the race, and in
no instance did I see any Moslem giving alms to Armenians, it
being considered a criminal offence for any one to aid them.

“I remained in Damascus and Aleppo about a month, leaving for
Smyrna on the twenty-sixth of October. All along the road I
met thousands of these unfortunate exiles still coming into
Aleppo. The sights I witnessed on this trip were more pitiful
than those I had seen on my trip to Aleppo. There seems to be
no end to the caravan which moves over the mountain ridge from
Bozanti south; throughout the day from sunrise to sunset, the
road as far as one can see is crowded with these exiles. Just
outside of Tarsus I saw a dead woman lying by the roadside
and farther on passed two more dead women, one of whom was
being carried by two gendarmes away from the roadside to be
buried. Her legs and arms were so emaciated that the bones were
nearly through her flesh and her face was swollen and purple
from exposure. Farther along, I saw two gendarmes carrying a
dead child between them away from the road where they had dug
a grave. Many of these soldiers and gendarmes who follow the
caravan have spades and as soon as an Armenian dies they take
the corpse away from the roadside and bury it. The mornings
were cold and many were dying from exposure. There are very
few young men in these caravans, the majority are women and
children, accompanied by a few old men over fifty years of age.

“At Bairamoglou, I talked with a woman who was demented from
the sufferings she had undergone. She told me that her husband
and father had both been killed before her eyes and that she
had been forced for three days to walk without rest. She had
with her two little children and all had been without bread for
a day. I gave her some money which she told me would be taken,
in all probability, from her before the day was over. Turks
and Kurds meet these caravans as they pass through the country
and sell them food at exorbitant prices. I saw a small boy
about seven years old riding on a donkey with his baby brother
in his arms. They were all that was left of his family.

“Many of these people go without bread for days, and they
become emaciated beyond description. I saw several fall from
starvation, and only at certain places along this road is there
water. Many die of thirst. Some of the Armenians who can afford
it hire carriages. These are paid for in advance and the prices
charged are exorbitant.

“At many places like Bozanti, for example, where there is an
encampment of Turkish soldiers, there is not enough bread for
these Armenians and only two hours from Bozanti I met a woman
who was crying for bread. She told me that she had been in
Bozanti for two days and was unable to obtain anything to eat,
except what travelers like myself had given her. Many of the
beasts of burden belonging to the Armenians die of starvation.
It is not an unusual sight to see an Armenian removing a pack
from the dead animal and putting it on his own shoulders. Many
Armenians told me that although they were allowed to rest at
night, they get no sleep because of the pangs of hunger and
cold.

“These people walk throughout the whole day at a shuffling gait
and for hours do not speak to one another. At one place where
I stopped along the road for lunch I was surrounded by a crowd
of little children all crying for bread. Many of these little
tots are obliged to walk barefooted along the road and many of
them carry little packs on their backs. They are all emaciated,
their clothes are in rags and their hair in a filthy condition.
The filth has given rise to millions of flies and I saw several
babies’ faces and eyes covered with these insects, the mothers
being too exhausted to brush them away.

“Diseases broke out in several places along the road, and in
Aleppo several cases of typhus fever among the Armenians were
reported when I left. Many families have been separated, the
men being sent in one direction and the women and children
in another. I saw one woman, who was with child, lying in
the middle of the road crying, and over her stood a gendarme
threatening her if she did not get up and walk. Many children
are born along the way and most of these die as their mothers
have no nourishment for them.

“None of these people have any idea where they are going or
why they are being exiled. They go day after day along the
road with the hope that they may somewhere reach a place where
they may be allowed to rest. I saw several old men carrying on
their backs the tools of their trade, probably with the hope
that they may some day settle down somewhere. The road over the
Taurus Mountains in places is most difficult and often times
crude conveyances drawn by buffalos, oxen and milch cows are
unable to make the grade and are abandoned and overturned by
the gendarmes into the ravine below. The animals are turned
loose. I saw several carts, piled high with baggage on the
top of which were many Armenians, break down and throw their
occupants in the road. One of the drivers, who was a Turk,
and who had collected an advance from the people whom he was
driving, considered it a huge joke when one woman broke her leg
from such a fall.

“There seems to be no cessation of the stream of these
Armenians pouring down from the North, Angora and the region
around the Black Sea. Their condition grows worse every day.
The sights that I saw on my return trip were worse than those
on my trip going, and now that the cold weather and winter
rains are setting in, deaths are more numerous. Roads in some
places are almost impassable.”