Armenia
a mountainous country of western Asia, of great historical interest, as the original seat of one of the oldest civilized peoples in the world. It was shared until the World War of 1914-1918 between Turkey, Persia, and Russia. It has an area of about 137,000 square miles, and is intersected by the Euphrates, which divides it into the ancient divisions, Armenia Major and Armenia Minor.
Topography. The country is an elevated plateau, inclosed on several sides by the ranges of Taurus and Anti-Taurus, and partly occupied by other mountains, the loftiest of which is Ararat. Several important rivers take their rise in Armenia, namely, the Kur or Cyrus, and its tributary the Aras or Araxes, flowing E. to the Caspian Sea; the Halys or Kizil-Irmak, flowing N. to the Black Sea; and the Tigris and Euphrates, which flow into the Persian Gulf. The chief lakes are Van and Urumiyah. The climate is rather severe. The soil is on the whole productive, though in many › places it would be quite barren were it not for the great care taken to irrigate it. Wheat, barley, tobacco, hemp, grapes, and cotton are raised; and in some of the valleys apricots, peaches, mulberries, and walnuts are grown.
People. The inhabitants are chiefly of the genuine Armenian stock, a branch of the Aryan or Indo-European race.
The total number of Armenians is estimated at 3,000,000. Almost one half of these, previous to the World War, lived in Transcaucasia, about 650,000 in Turkish Armenia, about 500,000 in what was formerly European Turkey, about 600,- ARMENIA 000 in Asiatic Turkey outside of Arme nia, about 100,000 in Persia, and about 15,000 in Hungaria, Transylvania and Galicia. In the last 15 years Armenian emigration to the United States has been considerable, almost 10,000 coming in in 1913, the year before the World War. Thirty-nine times the Armenians by force of arms have won the independence of their country, only_to lose it again. During the period the Turks were in control of the country everything possible was done to destroy the military spirit of the people. The Armenians were not allowed to bear arms, being compelled instead to pay a tax or indemnity to the Turks. This was only one of the many taxes levied upon them, the total reaching a large and almost crushing amount. In the collection of these taxes the Turks were cruelly ingenious.
Language. The Armenian language belongs to the Indo-European family of languages, and is most closely connected with the Iranic group. The old Armenian or Haikan language, which is still the literary and ecclesiastical language, is distinguished from the new Armenian, the ordinary spoken language, which contains a large intermixture of Persian and Turkish elements.
Religious Belief. - The Armenians received Christianity as early as the 2d century. During the Monophysitic disputes they held with those who rejected the twofold nature of Christ, and, being dissatisfied with the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon (451), they separated from the Greek Church in 536. The Popes have at different times attempted to gain them over to the Roman Catholic faith. There are small numbers here and there of United Armenians, who acknowledge the spiritual supremacy of the Pope, agree in their doctrines with the Catholics, but retain their peculiar ceremonies and discipline. But the far greater part are yet Monophysites, and have remained faithful to their old religion and worship. Their doctrine differs from the orthodox chiefly in their admitting only one nature in Christ, and believing the Holy Spirit to proceed from the Father alone.
History. Little is known of the early history of Armenia, but it was a separate state as early early as as the th 8th century B. C., when it became subject to Assyria, as it also did subsequently to the Medes and the Persians. It was conquered by Alexander the Great in 325 в. c., but regained its independence about 190 B. C. Its Its King Tigranes, son-in-law of the celebrated Mithridates, was defeated by the Romans under Lucullus and Pompey ARMENIAN MASSACRES about 69-66 B. C., but was left on the throne. Since then its fortunes have been various under the Romans, Parthians, Byzantine emperors, Persians, Saracens, Turks, etc. A considerable portion of it was acquired by Russia in the 19th century, part of this in 1878.
Within recent years thousands of Armenians have been massacred or have perished of starvation. In 1894-1896 they suffered terrible atrocities in the Sasun district. The Great Powers forced the Sultan to accept a scheme of reforms.
In spite of the Sultan's acquiescence the atrocities broke out afresh in 1895, and lasted till the spring of 1896. In the autumn of 1896 the persecutions recommenced and terrible massacres occurred at Harpoot and Egin. It is estimated that over 80,000 people perished in the various outbreaks. In Harpoot the fury of the mob seemed to be directed against the American and English mission stations. Several American missionaries were killed. See ARMENIAN MASSACRES.
MASSACRES .
After Turkey entered the European War of 1914-1918, a systematic extermination of the Armenian people was started. The American Committee for Armenian Relief reported in 1916 that between 600,000 and 850,000 Armenians were killed or perished from privations .
In 1920 the Great Powers in the League of Nations offered the United States the mandate of the Armenian Republic, but it was declined. See AR- MENIAN REPUBLIC.
ARMENIAN MASSACRES. Shortly after the oubreak of the war Turkish so-called "patriotic" societies began to send threatening letters to the Armenian press in Constantinople. Bands of Turkish "nationalists" were at this time going nightly through the Armenian quarter of Constantinople making threats of death upon the doors of houses, churches and schools. Shortly after the Young Turk Government made a definite attempt to win the Armenians over to the side of the Central Powers, whose cause they had espoused; but one leading authority at least believes that even then their ultimate destruction had been determined upon was indeed a foregone conclusion with so good a pretext as the outbreak of a general war. The Young Turks started their oppression of the Armenians of Turkey by " requisitioning" their property recklessly, and by sending exclusive battalions to the most exposed French and British fronts . The Turks now felt that they had a free course. The restraining hand of Europe was no longer upon them. Indeed they had the countenance of Germany , whom ARMENIAN MASSACRES they believed to be invincible. The Armenians as a people were in many cases armed and the government's first step was to make them defenseless.
The program they decided upon was to murder all the Armenian soldiery everywhere at one blowat the same time to decoy and murder the Armenian leaders-and finally to fall on the population. In less than a year the program had been carried out to the eternal shame of the Ottoman Government and the horror of civilization. The Armenians of Turkey to the number of about a million, old and young, rich and poor, and of both sexes, had been collectively drowned, burned, bayonetted, starved, bastinadoed or otherwise tortured to death, or else deported on foot penniless and without food, to the burning Arabian deserts.
Lord Bryce in his report to the House of Lords, Oct. 6, 1915, said: "The whole Armenian population of each town or village was cleaned out by a house-tohouse search. Every inmate was driven into the street. Some of the men were thrown into prison, where they were put to death, sometimes with torture; the rest of the men with the women and children were marched out of the town .
When they had got some little distance they were separated, the men being taken to some place among the hills where the soldiers, or the Kurdish tribes who were called to help in the work of slaughter, despatched them by shooting or bayoneting; the women or children, and old men were sent off under convoy of the lowest kind of soldiers - many of them just drawn from gaols, to their distant destination which was sometimes one of unhealthy districts in the center of Asia Minor, but more frequently the large desert in the province of Der-El-Lor, which lies east of Aleppo, in the direction of Euphrates. They were driven along by the soldiers day after day, all on foot, beaten or left behind to perish if they could not keep up with the caravan; many fell by the way, and many died of hunger. No provisions were given them by the Turkish Government , and they had already been robbed of everything they possessed. Not a few of the women were stripped naked and made to travel in that condition beneath a burning sun. Some of the mothers went mad , and threw away their children , being unable to carry them further. The caravan route was marked by a line of corpses, and comparatively few seem to have arrived at their destinationchosen, no doubt, because return was impossible and because there was little prospect that any would survive their hardships." Before the deportations be ARMENIAN MASSACRES gan, many Armenian women were seized by Turkish officers and officials for their harems. Others were sold in the slavemarket to Moslem purchasers only. Boys and girls in large numbers were also sold as slaves, sometimes for as low as two or three dollars. Other boys were delivered to the dervishes to be made Mussulmans. Some idea of the thorough and remorseless fashion of carrying out the massacres may be obtained from the instance of Trebizond. Here the Armenian residents were hunted out from house to house and driven in a great crowd down the streets to the sea. Here they were all put aboard sailing-boats, carried out into deep water and thrown overboard and drowned. Almost the entire population of Trebizond, numbering nearly 10,000 souls, was wiped out. Absolutely fiendish methods were employed on occasion. At Kouroukhan, in the search for arms, one man was shod like a horse, and another done to death by placing a red-hot iron crown on his head.
The treatment of the women was unspeakable. At Sivas, the terminus of the Anatolian railway to Erzerum, the soldiers like famished wolves consumed everything they found, and they outraged every woman they saw. In the last week of June and early in July the massacres began on a large scale throughout the province. All the male adult population were led away from their women and herded together into camps or prisons, and then massacred in small batches in some neighboring valley. At Mattepe, an hour's ride east of Sivas, 20 Armenian officials in the Government service were hacked to pieces. At Hubash, east of Sivas, 3,800 Armenians of the neighborhood were pole-axed, bayonetted, or stoned in blood-curdling circumstances. At Cotni, a village containing 120 Armenian families, bands of criminals just released from prison gloried in the exploit of having killed every male above twelve twelve, and outraged every female above the same age. The women of Malatia were stripped naked, and amil the jibes and jeers of the rabble were led on their way into the Mesopotamian desert. Many of these unfortunate women actually went mad; others employed painful means to end their lives. Throughout the province of Sivas 150,000 Armenians were killed or deported the latter being equivalent to massacre, as hardly any escaped death by starvation.
From May to October of 1915, the Turkish Government steadily pursued its program of extermination. A general order for deportation of every Armenian to Mesopotamia was sent to every prov- ARMENTIÈRES ince in Asia Minor, and no exceptions were made for the aged, the ill or even women in pregnancy. Only the rich and the best-looking women and girls were allowed the opportunity to accept Islamism-and very few of them did so. The time given to depart was two to six hours, and nothing but food and bedding was to be taken along, and only so much as each person could carry. The journey consumed from three to eight weeks, and very few survived it.
When they passed through Christian villages where the deportation order had not yet been received, the travelers were not allowed to receive food or ministrations of any sort. The sick and the aged and the children fell by the roadside and did not rise again.
In the neighborhood of two hundred thousand of the Armenian population managed to escape to the Caucasian borders and took refuge under the standard of Russia.
Lord Bryce estimated that four-fifths of the entire nation had been wiped out, and added, "there is no case in history, wiped out, certainly not since the time of Tamerlane, in which any crime so hideous and upon so large a scale has been recorded.
The Armenian atrocities have been called 'the blackest page of modern history."
A final report of the Armenian and Syrian Relief Committee, published at the close of the year 1915, showed thousands dying in the concentration camps along the Euphrates chiefly of starvation.
ARMENIAN REPUBLIC. The Turkish peace treaty handed to the Ottoman delegates in Paris May 11, 1920, had as one of its conditions the recognition by Turkey of Armenia as a free and independent state. It was also stipulated that Turkey should consent to accept the arbitration of President Wilson as to the frontier in the provinces of Erzerum, Trebizond, Van, and Bitlis, and to the access of Armenia to the sea. The de facto existence of the Armenian Republic had already been recognized by the Supreme Council of the Allies, in January, 1920, and by the United States in April of the same year. The Republic, whose existence had been self-proclaimed in May, 1918, is governed by a Parliament and by a Cabinet of six ministers, one of whom acts as Minister-President. The latter post was held in 1920 by Al Khatissian, who had been formerly Mayor of Tiflis under Russian control.
ARMENTIÈRES, a town of the department Nord, France, on the river Lys, near the Belgian frontier and about ten miles west-northwest of the great manu- ARMIES OF THE WORLD facturing center of Lille. Its population previous to the outbreak of the World War was 28,620. It had important industries in woolen cloth, linen, calicoes, lace, thread, sugar, and tobacco. Brickmaking was extensively carried on. Armentières was occupied by the Germans in the course of their first invasion in 1914, and all through the conflict it was in the zone of the fighting. It was the scene of terrific conflicts during the retreat of the British in the great German drive in the spring of 1918. When at length the tide of battle turned and the Germans were driven back in defeat, the town was a desolate and ghastly ruin.
ARMIES OF THE WORLD. The condition of the great at powers following the World War wrought an entirely different status in the composition and formation of their armies. While there was a strong effort to incorporate in the covenant of the League of Nations provisions providing for practical disarmament, it was found impossible to bring about this result, and the victorious nations were left practically free to raise and equip armies, although the general principle was enunciated that the League had some sort of control which would prevent the creation of armies beyond the size required for national protection.
The composition and organization of the army of the United States is described under the title MILITARY ORGANI- ZATION OF THE UNITED STATES. Following the close of hostilities the army of Great Britain was demobilized until it reached about 1,200,000 men, which included about 200,000 volunteer regulars. These were distributed in Germany, India, and in the various British possessions. Following the ratification of peace, the army of the Rhine was reduced from ten to two divisions. The total reductions were about 600,000. The regular army of Great Britain was then composed of about 250,000 men. It was stated by British war officials that the size of the army would remain practically the same as before the beginning of the World War.
By the terms of the Treaty of Peace, the strength of the German army was established at a maximum of 100,000 men. Disturbances in Germany, however, in 1919 and 1920 called for a much larger military establishment. This was made up of various reserve forces, some of which were used as police in the various cities. It was estimated on Jan. 1, 1920, that the German armed forces amounted to nearly 1,000,000 men, com- 18-Vol. I-Cyc ARMINIANISM posed of 400,000 regulars, 12,000 troops of the navy, 50,000 armed constabulary , from 150,000 to 200,000 temporary volunteers, and from 300,000 to 400,000 civic guards. See GERMANY .
While universal service was still maintained in France following the World War, its burdens were considerably lifted.
It was proposed to reduce the army to a strength of 350,000 men, of whom 200,- 000 were men doing compulsory service, 50,000 long-service men, 50,000 colonial troops, and 50,000 commissioned and non-commissioned officers. Conditions in Germany and in other parts of Europe made it impossible to carry out this plan in 1920, SO that a much larger force was maintained during that year than was provided for by these plans.
From the conditions in Russia prevailing in 1919 and 1920 it was impossible to arrive at any satisfactory estimate as to the size or composition of its armies.
In Austria the army had practically ceased to exist. In the other countries of Europe the unsettled conditions made it necessary to maintain comparatively large armies. This was especially true in Poland, where active hostilities were carried on with Russia, and, in Italy, where disturbances threatened on account of the difficulties in settling the boundaries.
The composition and strength of the armies in the other important countries of the world will be found in the articles on those countries.