Note 214 — Chapter IX · IN HISTORIC CILICIA CAMPESTRIS

The massacre in Constantinople which so horrified the civilized world was, like that in Adana, provoked by the revolutionary activities of the Armenians. After having boldly announced their intention of applying the torch to the city and “reducing it,” as their posted placards phrased it, “to a desert of ashes,” a party of audacious young conspirators proceeded to blow up the Ottoman Imperial Bank, while others of their associates made the Psammatia quarter flow in the blood of helpless inhabitants. During eighteen hours of terror the carnage which the Armenians caused by their use of dynamite and by throwing bombs from the windows upon the Turkish soldiers, who were detailed to suppress the outbreak, rivaled anything recorded in the worst days of the Paris Commune of 1871. Cf. Turquie Agonisante, p. 174 (by Pierre Loti).

Without pretending to absolve the exasperated Turks for their part in this appalling massacre, I may ask “what would the people of New York do if a foreign mob from the East Side with the red flag at their head were to attempt to blow up the Subtreasury Building and to make the same use of high explosives in their wanton destruction of life and property as did the Armenians in their ghastly work in Constantinople?” The answer will be sufficient attenuation for the conduct of the infuriated Turks on this frightful occasion. And yet, according to the reports flashed through the world at the time, this massacre, like that at Adana and at numberless other places, was laid to the charge of the “unspeakable Turk.” It was the old, old story; the Turk is always guilty, the Armenian never.