Note 1 — Chapter XXIII · GEOGRAPHICAL

When after the close of the last war between Russia and Turkey the leading statesmen of the European Powers assembled in congress at Berlin in the year 1878, they were approached by delegates from the Armenian people, one of whom was no less a personage than the present Katholikos, or High Priest of the nation, His Holiness Mekertich Khrimean. In answer to the enquiries of the Plenipotentiaries upon what portions of the Ottoman Empire the Armenians—of whom they had heard during their studies of the classics at school and college—still bestowed the glamour of an historical name, the delegates addressed themselves to the excellent map of the late Professor Kiepert and endeavoured to trace upon it the approximate limits of their country, embracing its area by a coloured line. Kiepert’s map, displaying on its face this interesting addition, is now slumbering in the archives of the Berlin Foreign Office, and I have been permitted, by the courtesy of the German Government, to hold it in my hands. So far as I remember, the area comprised within the coloured line corresponds approximately to that which is indicated in a document presented to Congress by the delegates, under the title of a project for an Organic Regulation to be applied to the new Armenian province which they desired to see established. The delegates asked that this province should be administered by Armenian officials; and when they were requested to state what proportion its Armenian inhabitants would bear to the Mussulmans, they furnished figures for the vilayets of Erzerum, Van and Bitlis (excluding Sert) which placed the numbers of the Mohammedans at 528,000 and the non-Mohammedans at 1,172,000.1 All the country between the Russian and Persian frontiers on the east, and a line drawn between Tireboli on the coast of the Black Sea and the confluence of the Kizil Chibuk Chai with the Euphrates on the west, was to be included in the new Government. The northern boundary was the coast line of the Black Sea; while that on the south extended from the Euphrates to the river of Bitlis, and so through the wild districts south of Lake Van back to the Persian frontier. At a congress of Oriental diplomatists both their demands and their statements would have been perfectly understood. One-half of the former might possibly be conceded, and the smallest fraction of the latter accepted. The collective wisdom of Europe assembled in the Prussian capital may perhaps have received a hint in this sense. The delimitation on the map of Kiepert was a far greater puzzle; how many members of Congress had even heard of the publication of the learned and laborious German Professor? But it was evident that there must be districts somewhere containing an Armenian population; so a clause was inserted in the Treaty to the effect that the Porte was pledged to carry out reforms in the provinces inhabited by Armenians.2