Can't Defend Armenians -nyt19151025
CAN'T DEFEND ARMENIANS
Turkish Statesman Says Government Has No Gendarmes in Interior
OCTOBER 25, 1915
BERLIN, Oct.24, (via London.)--The Constantinople correspondent of the Tageblatt, Emil Ludwig, sends the story of an interview which he had with Halil Bey, President of the Turkish Chamber of Deputies, regarding the Armenians. Halil Bey is quoted as follows:
"They are traitors. You have in mind certain excesses and blunders, but, believe me, the Government is not responsible for them, and regrets them as sincerely as anybody. But we have no more gendarmes in the interior. Everybody is under arms as a soldier. Thus it comes to pass that we have not everywhere been able to restrain the rage of the Mohammedans against these traitors to their country. The Government itself will only keep the Armenians so far from the theatre of war that they cannot conspire with the enemy."
Halil Bey pointed out, says the correspondent, that the Armenians went over to the Russians by thousands when the latter made an inroad to Van, and asked:
"Will you defend such things?"
AMSTERDAM, Oct. 24.--A dispatch from Constantinople to the Frankfurter Zeitung says that Halil Bey, former President of the Turkish Chamber of Deputies, has been appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Ottoman Cabinet.
A hard copy of this article or hundreds of others from the time of the Armenian Genocide can be found in The Armenian Genocide: News Accounts From The American Press: 1915-1922