The Armenian Crisis in Turkey: The Massacre of 1894, Its Antecedents and Significance With a Consideration of Some of the Factors Which Enter Into the Solution of This Phase of the Eastern Question
9781465648914
108 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
This is an important book. It deals with a burning question, and in a way which will command public attention and public confidence. The author is thoroughly equipped for his task. Birth, residence, and travel in Turkey have made him personally acquainted with the situation which he discusses, and the independence of his position enables him to write without restraint and without prejudice. After nearly four years of service as a missionary of the American Board in Van, the centre of Armenia, during which no criticism of his course was ever made either by the Board or by the Turkish Government, he was recently ordered by his physician to return to America. Having resigned his connection with the American Board, he writes as the representative of no society, religious or political, and is connected with none. In issuing this book he is simply discharging what to him is a personal and unavoidable obligation; and as he frankly avows its authorship, it will be impossible for the Turkish Government to hold any one else responsible for it. The author shows that the case of the subject races in the Ottoman Empire is desperate, that there is no hope of reform from within, and that relief must therefore come through the interference of the powers of Europe. Their action depends largely on the support of the public. “Public opinion,” therefore, “must be brought to bear upon this case,” as Mr. Gladstone said in the House of Commons six years ago. Since then there has been added a new chapter of horrors, and the demand for decisive action in the name of our common humanity has become more urgent. The facts furnished by this book ought to arouse such public opinion as will justify and compel prompt and efficient action on the part of the Powers. The United States need not depart from its long-established foreign policy, but is bound to protect its own honor and the lives and property of its citizens.
