So the problem of the village of Kheiban was solved, and if in the history of the crimes that have blackened the earth with wanton cruelty and made God to hide His face, there is any so atrocious a tale, I do not know it.  But if among the annals of heroism and of mother-love we want to find a nobler record than that of this woman of Kheiban, equally am I at a loss as to where we should look for it.  Among the true and golden legends of the world shall that which she did be inscribed for a memorial of her.

Northward from Mush, and Bitlis lies the province of Erzerum, with the town of the same name, that contained in the autumn of 1914 some 20,000 Armenians.  Here the first hint of coming trouble was the order that all Armenian soldiers serving in Turkish ranks should be disarmed.  This was followed in June by another order that all the inhabitants of the hundred villages in the district should leave their homes at two hours’ notice.  They numbered between 10,000 and 15,000 persons.  Of these a few took refuge with friendly Kurds, but of the remainder a few only lived to reach Erzinjan, where they were again deported, and the rest were murdered as they marched.  In Erzerum itself orders were received by Tahsin Bey, the Vali of the town, that all Armenians were to be killed without distinction of age or sex.  He refused to carry this order out, but his unwillingness was overruled.[1] Simultaneously, the German Consul telegraphed protests to his Ambassador at Constantinople, and was told that Germany could not interfere in the internal affairs of Turkey.

[Footnote 1:  At Angora a similar refusal on the part of the Governor resulted in his dismissal, and the same thing happened at Konia and at Kutaia.]

Here the method employed was deportation:  the victims were murdered, not in the town itself, but were given orders to leave their homes, and under guard march (for no conveyances were given them) to other districts.  The first company was to go to Diarbekr.  All these, with the exception of one man and forty women, were murdered on the first day’s march.  The remainder reached Kharput, which was another station or collecting place for the deported.  A German eye-witness tells us what fate waited them.  ’They have had their eyebrows plucked out, their breasts cut off, their nails torn off; their torturers hew off their feet, or else hammer nails into them as they do in shoeing horses.  This is all done at night-time, in order that people may not hear their screams and know of their agony.  Soldiers are stationed round the prisons, beating drums and blowing whistles.  It is needless to relate that many died of these tortures.  When they die, the soldiers cry, “Now let your Christ help you."’ A second caravan of five hundred families left Erzerum:  at Baiburt they were joined by another contingent deported from that town, and the account that follows is based on the information supplied by the Rev. Robert Stapleton, an American minister at Erzerum, and by an Armenian woman who was among the deported, and whose life was spared on her embracing Islamism.