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Maker Innovations Series

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Norman Dunbar

Arduino Interrupts
Harness the Power of Interrupts in Your Arduino
and ATmega328 Code
Norman Dunbar
Rawdon, West Yorkshire, UK

ISSN 2948-2542 e-ISSN 2948-2550

Maker Innovations Series
ISBN 978-1-4842-9713-1 e-ISBN 978-1-4842-9714-8
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-9714-8

© Norman Dunbar 2024

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively
licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is
concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in
any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks,

service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the
absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the
relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general
use.

The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the
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at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
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claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This Apress imprint is published by the registered company APress

Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
The registered company address is: 1 New York Plaza, New York, NY
10004, U.S.A.
Writing books is not an easy task, especially if you have other
commitments, like family, work, a dog, and suchlike. I would like to thank
my wife Alison for allowing me some spare time to get my thoughts down
on paper (or PDF) and also to everyone involved in the Arduino universe,
be that hardware, software, or even just a LATEX file to get Arduino IDE
code formatting styles available in a LYX document.1
Preface
Interrupts seem to be a bone of contention with some makers, but they
are actually quite simple (famous last words?) and have the bonus effect
of allowing almost instantaneous response to certain events happening,
which a polling application might miss, depending on what else it was
doing at the time.
Much of the Arduino code you see in books or on pages on the
Internet seem to avoid interrupts, which tends to give the impression
that they are somehow difficult. This could not be further from the
truth!
Interrupts actually help make your code simpler as you only have to
code the normal chain of events in your main loop and then write small,
very small for best results, functions to handle one interrupt event each.
For example, consider a small Arduino robot which wanders around its
environment and has a pair of switches attached to it to detect obstacles
– similar to the antennae on some insects.
The main code in the loop() function should concentrate on
driving the robot, most likely in a forward direction but based on a
variable which tells it which way to drive. Interrupts would be used to
detect when the collision switches had been “pressed” (by hitting
something) and update the variables used in the loop() to change
direction and turn away from the detected obstacle.
This book will hopefully make Arduino (ATmega328P) interrupts a
lot less “difficult” and easier to use in your own code.

1 Code and Listings

Inline code, within the text, will be formatted as typewriter text, like
this.
Code segments and listings in the rest of the book will be shown as
follows:
Listing 1 Example code listing

Hopefully, you will note that the code formatting is in the same style as
the code in the Arduino IDE environment.
This is thanks to arduinoLanguage.tex, a small LATE X file,
which is available from my GitHub repository.2 Of course, this was not all
my own work; I forked the original repository owned by “Trihedral.”3 I
am extremely grateful to “Trihedral” for making the code available as it
saved me no end of work, not least trying to figure out the color codes! I
have slightly amended my version to highlight the ATmega328P’s
register and bit names in addition to the Arduino Language highlighting.
If the code in Listing 1 is not highlighted as it would normally appear
in the Arduino IDE, then I humbly apologize; the production processes
in converting my PDF files into a proper book appear to have
overwritten the Arduino style with their own in-house style. C’est la vie.

You are permitted to reuse the code listed in this book as you see fit
– it’s here to help you, so use it! And if you want to credit me, then
feel free to do so as well – but it’s not mandatory.
The code repository for this book is located at https://​github.​com/​
Apress/​arduino-interrupts.

2 Arduino and AVR Code

Some of the examples in this book are obviously written for the Arduino
IDE – those examples will need to be compiled within the IDE or using
the new Arduino-cli utility4 of course!
The non-Arduino examples will be found in folders named
“PlatformIO.”5 This is another development system for Arduino and AVR
projects, and I thoroughly recommend it. The project files, included in
this book’s code repository, will mainly be configured for either my
Arduino Duemilanove or my Arduino Uno boards and may need to be
slightly edited to suit your particular Arduino board. It will not be
necessary for you to create a new project and then copy my files from
the src, lib, and/or include directories into your project’s similarly
named directories as all you need to do is edit the supplied
platformio.ini file in each project to suit your board.
If you only have the Arduino IDE and you wish to try out the
PlatformIO (plain AVR C++ in other words) versions of the sketches in
the examples, then you can easily do this if you start a new sketch in the
Arduino IDE and copy the code from the PlatformIO source file(s) into it,
replacing all the standard code that the IDE creates for you.
When you compile the code, it will still compile all the Arduino files
that it would normally do, but it will not link them into the finished
binary (hex) file. You will get the same sized executable ready for
uploading as you would get with the PlatformIO system installed.
What you will not get is any of the Arduino Language features such
as millis(), delay(), setup(), loop(), and so on, and there’s
none of the nice hand-holding that you get from the Arduino Language –
you are firmly in control now! (Have fun!)
Oh yes, for the sake of keeping things simple, most, if not all, of the
example sketches and code just flash an LED. Everyone knows how to do
this, don’t they? LEDs are a fairly simple method of showing how
something works without needed masses and masses of sometimes
impenetrable code. Out there in the real world, things are a bit more
involved than just blinky lights – but hopefully, I’ll have explained things
in a good enough way for you to go off and make your own, interrupt-
driven, projects. Good luck and have fun!

3 Admonitions
If I want to draw your attention to something or emphasize some fact
from the main body of the text, I will use a note, as follows:

Note
This is a note that I want to bring to your attention.

If there is something that you really need to be aware of, you will see
this:

Warning
This is some text that I want to bring to your attention. It may help
prevent your Arduino from releasing the magic blue smoke that
makes it work, or it may explain the reason why your code fails to do
what was expected.

And finally, if I have a useful tip or helpful hint, I will do this:

Tip
Never run with scissors!
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Terminology
Terms like “master” and “slave” are deemed to be no longer acceptable,
and many organizations have been amending their documentation to
replace those terms with other, more acceptable ones.
In the data sheet for the ATmega328P,6 the existing “master” and
“slave” terms are still in place. In this book, I will avoid those terms,
unless I am directly quoting from the data sheet or using the name of a
register or bit within a register.
I will be replacing “slave” with “sensor” or “peripheral” and “master”
with “controller” as appropriate and as is currently the new standard.
Introduction
This book is intended to be a guide, for beginners and moderately
experienced Arduino makers, into the slightly scary world of Arduino
Interrupts. Actually, it’s not actually the Arduino, it’s the Arduino’s
microcontroller, the ATmega328P. However, I’ll be using one or two of
my Arduino boards as test beds throughout.
Interrupts do not feature much7 in the Arduino Language, but are an
integral part of the AVR hardware itself. They are what allows your
sketch, or application code, to apparently do two things at once.
Consider, for example, that your laser cutter has a powerful and
exceedingly destructive laser beam. You would like the beam to cut off
immediately when you hit the Big Red PANIC! Switch – it’s no good to
you, or anyone else, if the beam carries on until the end of the
programmed cut and then checks to see if the switch has been pressed.
That switch is almost 100% certain to be attached to an interrupt,
and that interrupt will “fire” as soon as the switch is hit, cutting off the
beam immediately.
There are times when polling a sensor is acceptable, but in doing so,
you waste the microcontroller’s time and resources when it should be
left to get on with whatever the main task is, and only process the sensor
input when the sensor has some to offer.
Do you sit in your lounge at home regularly checking the front door
to see if someone is there? Or do you wait for the doorbell to chime,
interrupting whatever you are doing at the time? That’s the difference
between polling and interrupts in a nutshell.
The main body of code continues as programmed, doing what it does
best, and without checking the “front door” all the time. When the
“doorbell” chimes, the program is interrupted, saves its place in the
code, goes off to see who is at the door, and then comes back to continue
from where it left off. There’s no specific place that it can be interrupted;
it can happen at any place in the code, and it will be handled correctly –
if programmed to do so.
In the forthcoming chapters, I will explain the vast majority of the
interrupts8 available on the microcontroller used in the Arduino Uno,
Nano, and my favorite, the Duemilanove, the Atmel (now Microchip)
ATmega328P. In each case, where relevant, I will explain what the
interrupt is for; how it works; how, or if, it can be used in an Arduino
sketch; and how it can be used in plain AVR C++ code. In addition, if I
feel like showing off, I will show it in AVR Assembly Language. All the
demonstration code will be available for download from the book’s
GitHub account.
Where appropriate, each demonstration will be accompanied by a
Fritzing9 project in which only the breadboard layout is of any relevance.
For those readers without a Fritzing installation (and why not?), there
will be a PNG image, exported from the project, to show the breadboard
layout.
Any source code or other supplementary material referenced by the
author in this book is available to readers on GitHub (github.​com/​
Apress). For more detailed information, please visit https://​www.​
apress.​com/​gp/​services/​source-code.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank everyone at Apress and Springer who were
involved in the production of this book. Some names that spring to mind
are Miriam Haidara, my Commissioning Editor, who thought this would
be a good book; Sowmya Thodur who has had to suffer keeping me
organized and on the straight and narrow; Jessica Vakili who has had the
misfortune to have to work with me on two books now; James Markham,
my Development Editor; and especially to all the unsung heroes behind
the scenes who converted my files into something you can hold in your
hand and read in the bath!
Open source has played a big part in this book too. The book was
written using the LyX editor (www.​lyx.​org/​).
Graphics for various circuit schematics and breadboard layouts are
courtesy of the Fritzing tool for circuit design (https://​fritzing.​org/​).
Arduino code highlighting is facilitated by the Arduino Latex Listing
project run by “Trihedral” on GitHub (https://​github.​com/​trihedral/​
ArduinoLatexList​ing/​).
Code for the book was developed using both the Arduino IDE
versions 1.8.6 and 2.1.0 (www.​arduino.​cc/​) and PlatformIO, my
preferred development system (https://​platformio.​org/​).
Finally, I must thank my Technical Reviewer, Farzin Asadi, who
kindly read and commented on my code and pointed out a, thankfully,
small number of errors and improvements.
Contents
1 Arduino Interrupts
1.​1 Interrupt Concepts
1.​2 Interrupt Processing
1.​3 Interrupts While Processing Interrupts
1.​4 Interrupts While Not Configured
1.​5 Interrupt Coding – Points to Note
1.​5.​1 Do You Really Need Interrupts?​
1.​5.​2 Delays and Serial Input/​Output
1.​5.​3 Keep ISRs Short
1.​5.​4 Variables May Be Volatile
1.​5.​5 Interrupt Vectors Can Be Relocated by Fuse Settings
1.​5.​6 The Arduino Doesn’t Make Interrupts Easy
1.​6 Key Takeaways
1.​7 Coming Up
2 Reset Interrupt
2.​1 Resetting the Board
2.​2 Register Summary
2.​2.​1 MCU Status Register
2.​3 Key Takeaways
2.​4 Coming Up
3 External Interrupts INT0/​INT1
3.​1 Interrupts INT0 and INT1
3.​2 Setting Up Arduino Interrupts
3.​2.​1 Interrupt Number
3.​2.​2 Interrupt Function
 3.​2.​3 Interrupt Stimulus
3.​2.​4 Arduino Polling Example
3.​2.​5 Arduino Interrupt Example
3.​3 Setting Up AVR Interrupts
3.​3.​1 Register Usage
3.​3.​2 Configuring the Interrupt
3.​3.​3 Enabling the Interrupt
3.​3.​4 Interrupt Service Routines
3.​4 AVR Interrupt Example
3.​4.​1 Compiling AVR Code in the Arduino IDE
3.​5 Interrupt Flags
3.​6 Register Summary
3.​6.​1 External Interrupt Mask Register
3.​6.​2 External Interrupt Control Register A
3.​6.​3 External Interrupt Flag Register
3.​7 Key Takeaways
3.​8 Coming Up
4 Pin Change Interrupts
4.​1 Changing Pins
4.​2 Arduino and ATmega328P Pinout
4.​3 Setting Up Arduino Interrupts
4.​4 Setting Up AVR Interrupts
4.​4.​1 Choosing Pins, Setting Masks
4.​4.​2 Enabling Pin Change Interrupts
4.​4.​3 Pin Change Interrupt Setup Summary
4.​4.​4 Writing the ISR
 4.​5 The AVR Sketch – Single Pin
4.​6 The AVR Application – Multiple Pins
4.​7 Interrupt Flags
4.​8 Register Summary
4.​8.​1 Pin Change Interrupt Control Register
4.​8.​2 Pin Change Mask Registers
4.​8.​3 Pin Change Interrupt Flag Register
4.​9 Key Takeaways
4.​10 Coming Up
5 Watchdog Interrupt
5.​1 Watching the Board
5.​2 Setting Up the Watchdog Timer
5.​2.​1 The Easy Method
5.​2.​2 The Watchdog Timer Control and Status Register
5.​2.​3 The Hard Method
5.​2.​4 Watchdog Timer Reset Loop
5.​3 Watchdog Timer Interrupt Flag
5.​4 Arduino Watchdog Timer Interrupt Sketch
5.​5 AVR Watchdog Timer Interrupt Application
5.​6 Watchdog Reset Sketch
5.​7 Register Summary
5.​7.​1 Watchdog Timer Control and Status Register
5.​7.​2 MCU Control Register
5.​8 Key Takeaways
5.​9 Coming Up
6 Timer/​Counter Interrupts
 6.​1 Timers and Counters
6.​2 Timer/​Counter Bits and Pieces
6.​3 Overflow Interrupt
6.​3.​1 Configuring Timer/​Counter 1
6.​3.​2 Arduino Overflow Interrupts
6.​3.​3 AVR Overflow Interrupts
6.​4 Compare Match A/​B Interrupt
6.​4.​1 Compare Match Pins
6.​4.​2 Timer/​Counter Configuration
6.​4.​3 Arduino Compare Match Interrupts
6.​4.​4 AVR Match Interrupts
6.​5 Input Capture Event Interrupt
6.​5.​1 Timer/​Counter 1 Configuration
6.​5.​2 Arduino Input Capture Interrupts
6.​5.​3 AVR Input Capture Interrupts
6.​6 Register Summary
6.​6.​1 Timer/​Counter Interrupt Mask Registers
6.​6.​2 Timer/​Counter Interrupt Flag Registers
6.​7 Key Takeaways
6.​8 Coming Up
7 SPI Interrupt
7.​1 I SPI with My Little Eye
7.​2 SPI Background
7.​2.​1 SPI Clock
7.​2.​2 SPI Frequency
7.​2.​3 Bit Ordering
 7.​2.​4 Phase, Polarity, and SPI Mode
7.​3 Data Transfers
7.​4 Controller and Peripheral Modes
7.​4.​1 Controller Mode
7.​4.​2 Peripheral Mode
7.​5 Write Collision Errors
7.​6 Interrupts
7.​6.​1 Controller Interrupts
7.​6.​2 Peripheral Interrupts
7.​7 Controller Mode—Interrupt LED Driver
7.​7.​1 The SN74HC595 Shift Register
7.​7.​2 The LED Driver Circuit
7.​7.​3 The LED Driver Code
7.​8 Peripheral Mode—LED Driver
7.​9 What About Plain AVR C++?​
7.​9.​1 Compiling and Uploading
7.​10 Register Summary
7.​10.​1 SPI Data Register
7.​10.​2 SPI Control Register
7.​10.​3 SPI Status Register
7.​10.​4 Data Direction B Register
7.​11 Key Takeaways
7.​12 Coming Up
8 USART Interrupts
8.​1 The USART
8.​2 USART Configuration
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Other documents randomly have
different content
 PRESENT SULTAN, HAMID II.

From an early portrait.

Murad was too astonished to know what to do or say; but Heussein was resolute, and
Murad reluctantly followed him to the Dalma Bagsh; there the commander ordered the
soldiers to cry out three times “Padishahum chock yasa” (Long live the Sultan). All this
was about midnight; and meantime printed notices were prepared and scattered
throughout Constantinople that Sultan Aziz was deposed and Sultan Murad was on the
throne. After a few days the commander-in-chief sent a eunuch and a physician to
Cheragan Palace, with orders to put Aziz to death. They did so by chloroforming him
and cutting his blood-vessels with scissors. Heussein prepared a false report stating that
he had committed suicide, and brought it to Sultan Murad. The latter did not believe it,
and said, “you killed my uncle.” Heussein left the Sultan’s presence in great anger, and
went to Midhad’s palace to confer with him, calling in also Kaysereli Ahmed and other
officers. While they were together, another officer, Cherkez Hassan by name, brother-in-
law of the dead Sultan, came to the palace, informing the guard that he had a message
from the Sultan to the pashas, who were in conference. The guard admitted him, and he
went to the parlor. After the usual salutations the commander asked him, “Hassan, why
did you come here?” Hassan replied, “I came to kill you, dog,” and fired three shots at
him from his revolver, stretching him dead on the floor. Then, before the others could
assail him, he killed every one present, except Midhad, who escaped. Hassan was finally
captured and hanged, but Murad was established on the throne. He was a good-natured
and liberal-minded man; he believed in constitutional government, and organized a
working system. There was to be a parliament, one-third Christians and two-thirds
Mohammedans, elected by the people of the provinces or vilayets. Each vilayet
furnished three members, two Mohammedans and one Christian, all indorsed by the
clergymen. During the elections I was pastor of Adana in Armenia Minor, and had to
endorse our members. The Adana member was an Armenian named Krikor Bizdigian,
the richest man of that city, perhaps in Turkey; if still living, he must be ninety. When the
parliament was opened in Constantinople, Sultan Murad presided, and told the members
to discuss any questions freely. He said, “We are here for the good of the country, and
the empire needs to be reformed; how can we reform it?” This was an entire novelty;
“government by discussion” is not the Oriental way, and not the Oriental liking either.
The Mohammedan members were astonished, and they were wrathful at the Christian
members when the latter began to make free and able speeches. They said, “Are we
going to be governed by these heathen dogs, the Christian hogs? We will have no
parliament where every dog is free to open his mouth. We want the good old ways of
Mohammed.” They were like mad dogs, ready to bite. They hated the Christians, and
they hated the Sultan. They went to his younger brother, the present Sultan, and told him
his brother Murad was insane. “He makes Christian dogs equal to Mussulmen; he will
ruin the country; you must become Sultan to save the Turkish Empire.” This suited
Abdul Aziz exactly; he headed a revolt, deposed his good brother, dissolved the
parliament, imprisoned Murad in the palace where his uncle was assassinated, and since
then has been carrying the country to destruction. He is a perfect devil in all respects. A
devil can take the guise of an angel, and the Sultan has the cunning to make himself
appear a perfect gentleman, a benevolent and humane person. The devil can cheat most
people, and so can the Sultan, all but the native Christians in Turkey, to whom he shows
his horns, and hoofs, and tail.

The nauseous praise of the Sultan from travelers and ministers reminds me of a Turkish
brigand named Guro, who infested Asia Minor a quarter of a century ago. He robbed
year after year all travelers who had anything worth taking; but when he met tramps he
gave them money, and even a roasted lamb to eat now and then. The tramps all praised
him; he was a benevolent, humane, kind-hearted man; they had never seen anything
cruel or dishonest about him. So the Sultan robs the Armenians, and uses their money to
feast the American ministers and decorate their wives. Oh, but the Sultan sent money to
the sufferers from famine in the Western States of America; so generous of him! I am
glad to say the money was refused. All Americans who praise the Sultan are like the
tramps and the brigand. They are either ignorant or in effect bribed. And then there is the
affectation of impartiality, so easy a cover for ignorance, coldness, and laziness. You
must say some good things about a scoundrel, and some ill ones about a saint, or you
will be considered a partisan. You must not tell even the truth, if the truth is all on one
side. If the Sultan massacres all the Christians in Turkey, why, there are two sides to the
question; perhaps the Christians were not agreeable people, and if so, you cannot wonder
he has them exterminated by sword, and fire, and torture, and rape; it is really the only
way he could get rid of them. And then, he is king, and has a right to do what he pleases
with his own; nobody has any business to interfere. Of course a President could not
order three millions of people put to death by letting loose all the savage Indians of the
West on them to do as they pleased with them, for the sake of making them worship the
Big Manitou; but a Sultan—that is different, even though a Kurd is exactly as bad as an
Indian, and an Indian’s knife does not cut throats any more effectively, nor an Indian’s
tortures inflict more unnamable horrors of suffering, nor an Indian’s torch burn houses
any better, nor an Indian’s beastly lust defile women any worse. Are all the writers, then,
who have praised him ignorant or silly? Yes; the Sultan’s deeds, proved by countless
thousands of witnesses, set forth in the consular reports, show that they are.

As soon as Abdul Hamid had seized the throne, he girded on the sword of Osman, which
I will explain later is equivalent to coronation. The keys of the palace where Murad was
imprisoned he keeps in his pocket. The nominal ground of his imprisonment is insanity,
but he was not insane; it was his liberality of mind, his greatness of heart, and his mild
and kind spirit. He was an exceptional Turk. Then Hamid called Midhad Pasha to him,
gave him $25,000, and told him to leave the country and never come back. The country
was thus left without a single man of any force of character and a large position
combined. After the death of Aziz the two greatest Turks were Sultan Murad and Midhad
Pasha, and had Murad not been imprisoned, and Midhad banished, the Turkish Empire
would be an entirely different country, and have a different future.

Midhad was finally recalled, but only to be murdered. As the Sultan felt his position
secure, he began to get rid of all men of superior character and education. Some he
banished, some he imprisoned, some he killed. But Midhad, as the greatest, was the most
obnoxious. He was of course not dispatched at once. He was invited back, made
governor of Smyrna, given the highest emoluments, paid the greatest honors; then one
night he was suddenly summoned to Constantinople by the Sultan. He knew it was the
death-call, and fled to the French consulate for shelter, but the consul was afraid to
protect him. Finally he was taken by force to Constantinople, tried before a tribunal of
course packed by the Sultan, and condemned to death. But the kind-hearted Sultan
commuted the death sentence to banishment and hard labor for life, and quietly ordered
the officers who were going to take him to banishment to kill him instead, which they
did.
After he had got rid of all the great Turks, he appointed a host of ignorant and cruel
ruffians as governors, sub-governors, and generals; like Hadjii Hassan Pasha, governor
of Beshick-Tash near the Sultan’s palace, and whose business is to watch over the
Sultan, and who cannot read or write. He prefers ignorance, because it means fanaticism,
and he thinks cannot plot against him. He dreads and hates education and the educated,
though he makes a show of encouraging them. He taxed the people for public schools
and put up magnificent buildings, but there are few if any scholars in them; they were
not built for educational purposes, but for a show, and if necessary, for barracks in the
future. All the same, he has his agents in Europe and America chant his praises as a lover
of learning. Parents will not send their children to them anyway, for there are not
competent teachers in them; there are a very few ignorant Mohammedan teachers, but
even they are so corrupt morally that no one dares trust his boy or girl with them. The
Sultan professed that people of all nationalities and religions would have equal
privileges in his public schools, therefore he ordered all to contribute money for them.
He raised the farmers’ tax from one-tenth to one-eighth of the crops on pretense of
supporting the public schools. Of course he got most of it from the Armenians, but there
is not an Armenian teacher or child in them.

Abdul Hamid is a stupendous hypocrite and charlatan; he makes a great pretense of

wisdom, religion, and morality, and he has not a spark of either one. His wisdom is only
the animal cunning of a jealous, cruel, suspicious brute, his morals simply do not exist,
and his religion is pure sham. It is often reported that he is very religious. All that it
amounts to is that every Friday (the Mohammedan Sunday) he goes to the mosque to
worship (a ceremony called selamlik), with several thousand soldiers lining the roads
from the palace to the mosque to prevent his assassination, of which he is in hourly fear;
that once a year he goes to the old Seraglio and pays tribute to the mantle of Mohammed
and other relics, kissing the slipper, coat, and beard of the prophet; and he worships in
the mosque of St. Sophia as a conqueror. All this is merely for show, to please the fanatic
Mohammedans. He advertises himself as a temperance man, too, but he drinks to excess
privately. In a word, he is thoroughly false from top to bottom, pretending all good, and
doing all evil.

His officers of course imitate him; most of them are absolute infidels, believing in
nothing, but professing great devotion. I knew a governor of this stamp. He used to
worship at the mosque, and even ordered a hair of Mohammed’s whiskers to be brought
from Constantinople to please the Mohammedan population. He never drank a drop of
liquor in public, but privately drank all he could hold. He had plenty of fellows. For
instance, Khalil Rifat Pasha, the present Grand Vezir, appointed a few months ago, has
been governor of several different provinces, and notorious in all as a great hypocrite
and a thoroughly corrupt man, full of lust and profligacy. When a European or a native
Christian of high position called on him, he would treat the visitor with great politeness,
promise anything he asked, say, “take my word of honor,” and assure him of his entire
sincerity; as soon as he was gone, Khalil would curse him, and call him a heathen dog,
say to another Mohammedan, “See how that Christian hog believed what I said!” and
keep not a word of his promises.

The Sultan is just the same. He is outwardly very pleasant, very gentlemanly, very
humane. He will promise almost anything, but he will do nothing, and he calls his
enraptured guests dogs and hogs behind their backs. Who knows how many times he has
called Lord Salisbury, the German Emperor, or the Russian Czar, who are helping him to
kill the Armenians, heathen dogs? See the promises of the Sultan in 1878, in the Berlin
Treaty, Article 61:—“The Sublime Porte undertakes to carry out without further delay
the improvements and reforms demanded by local requirements in the provinces
inhabited by the Armenians, and to guarantee their security against Circassians and
Kurds. It will periodically make known the steps taken to this effect to the powers, who
will superintend their application.” These promises were made eighteen years ago, and
the reforms were to be made “without further delay.” His reforms have consisted in
ordering Circassians and Kurds to murder and plunder them. Since the Berlin Treaty, the
Sultan, calling the European kings, emperors, and princes heathen hogs and Christian
dogs, directly and indirectly has killed 200,000 Armenians. That was his reform.

When he seized the throne, Turkey had 40,000,000 people, and the Sultan thought his
power was irresistible. He let loose a horde of Circassians to massacre the Bulgarians,
just as he has let loose the Kurds to massacre the Armenians. But the Bulgarians are
Slavs, and belong to the Greek Church, and the Russian Czar, Alexander, grandfather of
the present Czar, interfered in their favor. This excited the fears of the other powers, and
a Congress was held in Constantinople to settle the question. Lord Salisbury came from
England, Count Ignatieff from Russia, and others from other parts of Europe, gathered in
a beautiful palace (now the admiralty) on the shores of the Golden Horn of sweet waters,
discussed the question, and decided that the Bulgarian atrocities must stop, Bulgaria be
reformed and allowed to govern itself internally, and that Turkey must not fight Russia
because it was too weak. This decision was communicated to the Sultan, and he was
furious: he would not grant freedom or a government to Bulgaria, and he was quite able
to fight Russia. Finally he refused flatly to accept the decision, and called a Turkish
Congress to give their “opinion.” Of course they gave what was wanted, and pronounced
in favor of a war with Russia. A few were bold enough to disfavor it, and the Sultan
punished them. One of these was Hagop Efendi Madteosian, the representative of the
Protestant Armenian community. Another was a thoughtful, experienced Turk, and when
the Sultan asked him his reason for opposing the war, he related the following parable:

“There was once a miser whom the king gave his choice of three things: to eat five
pounds of raw onions without bread at one meal, to receive five hundred lashes on the
bare back, or to pay $5,000. The miser could not bear to lose so much money; he could
not endure such a flogging; and he chose to eat the onions. After eating a pound or so
their bitterness and rankness nauseated him, and he concluded to take the whipping. He
stood about a hundred lashes, and saw that he should die under it; and decided to pay the
$5,000 after all.” “Now,” said the wise Turk, “this illustrates what I mean. If you go to
war with Russia, you will sacrifice many thousands of soldiers, which is a very bitter
thing to digest; then you will lose European Turkey, and finally you will have to pay
millions of dollars indemnity and ruin the country. I cannot approve the war.” The Sultan
cried out in rage, “Begone, you old crank! I will not listen to any more foolish words
from you. I shall conquer the Czar, enlarge the country, and strengthen my kingdom.” He
did go to war in 1876, was whipped by the Czar, and lost almost the whole of European
Turkey and other parts of the empire, with 22,000,000 people: Roumania, Bulgaria,
Servia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, part of Macedonia, part of Armenia, Cyprus, and
afterwards Egypt. He lost many thousands of soldiers and millions of dollars, and
besides has had to pay millions of dollars indemnity to Russia. And the Sultan is called
an “able man” and “wise ruler”! These things look like it.

After the war and the loss of the provinces, he encouraged the Mohammedan population
of European Turkey to emigrate to Asiatic Turkey, that they might not live under
Christians, and that they might increase the number of Mohammedans in the Asiatic
part. The slaughter of the Armenians and the confiscation of their property forms part of
the scheme to make room for them. Before his time the Armenians in Armenia
outnumbered the Turks; but the massacres, the occupation of the farms and houses by
the savages let loose on them, and the emigration of many more Armenians to Persia and
Russia, have greatly diminished their numbers. Of course they are not permitted to
emigrate, they simply fly. About 200,000 have actually perished. As to the forced
conversions, the Sultan does not care a particle for Islamism, but wants to please the
Moslem and finds this an agreeable way to do it. As to the converts from Islamism to
Christianity, they are ordered to go to Constantinople and are killed there. Hundreds and
thousands of the Mohammedan Turks are Christians in secret, but do not dare to confess
it. These are the ones who helped and protected the Armenians during the recent
atrocities. Some six years ago a number of such professed the Christian religion
publicly; they were at once ordered to go to Constantinople and every one of them was
murdered by order of the Sultan. When the representatives of the Christian powers asked
about them the Sultan denied that they had come there at all. This was the method of
their assassination: The Sultan has several pleasure boats, and in one of these boats he
fitted up an air-tight room with an air-pump; each night one of the converts was taken
from prison and put into this room, the air was pumped out, and he was suffocated; then
an iron chain was hooked round him, and he was thrown into the Bosphorus. One by one
all of them were so murdered. How did the author of this book discover the secret? Well,
when in Constantinople, I had an intimate friend among the engineers; the engineer of
this death boat told my friend about it, and he told me.
And the Sultan is not simply a murderer by proxy and official order; he is a murderer
himself personally. When in Constantinople, I learned from several authoritative sources
that he killed with his own revolver several of his servants, for no cause whatever, but
merely from suspicion or rage. He always keeps a revolver in his pocket, and whomever
in the palace he suspects, he shoots. He is a great coward. I heard there that he has more
than 10,000 detectives, at a cost of several hundred thousand dollars a year. He lives in
Yildiz Palace, about two miles from the Bosphorus, on a hill on the European shore; he
has built new barracks, and keeps a large army around the palace to protect him from
assassination. His “wisdom” is merely care for his skin. He cares nothing for the
prosperity of the country; it is steadily growing poorer, while he is personally growing
very rich. That is one reason why he keeps an Armenian treasurer, that the Turks may not
know his secrets. Even the Turks are disgusted with him. I often used to hear the Turks
say, “God deliver us from the Sultan and send another master, even if he is the Czar of
Russia.” His immense family costs him from $10,000,000 to $15,000,000 a year; it is the
largest in the world. I was told that it consists of 5,000 persons, counting the eunuchs,
the servants, and all. He has about 500 wives; he did not marry them all; he inherited
most of them. When a Sultan dies, his successor has everything that belonged to him,
including his wives. And besides, he has to marry a new wife every year, by the
Mohammedan and governmental law; he has no choice in the matter. That makes twenty
wives in the twenty years of Abdul Hamid’s reign. This is the system: He has at present
nearly one hundred young girls in the harem, supposed to be the most beautiful in the
world; they are presented to him by the governor-generals, who get them from the local
governors, who get their offices by sending their superiors the finest looking girls, or the
best Arabian horses, and the governor-generals get theirs by passing the gifts on to the
Sultan. That is the way to get office in Turkey. You may be a murderer, a thief, or an
ignoramus, but you can be sure of an office if you can furnish a handsome girl, or a fine
stallion, or a few thousand dollars. When I was pastor in Marsovan, the local governor,
Sudduc Bey, bought a very pretty girl, and sent her to the governor-general of Beshick-
Tash in Constantinople, Hadji Hassan Pash, the Sultan’s special guard; he had got his
office from that functionary. As to how the girls are got, it depends; if they are
Mohammedan, they are bought; if they are Christian they are seized by force, for the
Christians will not sell their daughters. Several months ago Bahri Pasha, the governor-
general of Van, carried off several Armenian girls and presented them to the Sultan, who
decorated him for the service, and appointed him Vali or governor-general of Adana, in
Armenia Minor. These girls are kept in the harem of the Sultan. When the time comes to
marry another wife, he has the girls stand in a row, and chooses one of them by covering
her face with a silk handkerchief; then she is taken by the eunuchs to the quarters
allotted to the Sultanas, and can have separate servants, carriages, and eunuchs. The life
of the Sultan and his big family is the most miserable in the world. The palace is a focus
of discontent, quarrels, jealousy, lust, and cruelty; in a word, it is a perfect hell. The
women have nothing to do, and nothing to think of; they do not read, they have no work,
and no share even in household management; they are idle, and unspeakably bored, and
they do what most idle people of both sexes do all over the world—excite their nerves
with sensual cravings, and then try to satisfy them. They often manage to bring boys to
their quarters by stealth, and keep them there for weeks for purposes of lust, and the
Sultan knows nothing about it; often they bribe their eunuchs, and go to other places to
satisfy their desires, and the Sultan never hears of it. Aziz lost his life through an intrigue
of one of his wives. With so large and exacting a family, it is no wonder the Sultan has
no time or energy left for improving his administration. He only finds a little time to
send telegrams to the governors to exterminate the Armenians.

THE SULTANATE AND ITS POWERS.

There is no coronation in Turkey; instead the Sultans gird on the sword of Osman, the
founder of the Ottoman Dynasty, which is kept in the mosque of Ayoob, in
Constantinople. When a Sultan is proclaimed, he goes to that mosque with great pomp,
and all the members of the Sublime Porte, the civil officers, the generals, commanders,
soldiers, patriarchs of different religions, and the Sheik-ul-Islam, the Mohammedan
religious head, follow him. But no Christians enter that holy place, as it is forbidden
them. After impressive service, the chief of the dervishes of the order of Mevlair girds
the Sultan with the sword; then he is officially recognized as emperor. Then, as God’s
will be done, Sultan’s will be done, because the Sultan represents God in heaven,
Mohammed in Paradise, Osman on the earth. He has three offices, God’s office,
Mohammed’s office, Osman’s office. He is as infallible as the Pope of Rome, and
temporally everything belongs to him without exception, men, women, children, money,
property, just as everything belongs to God. A Turkish proverb says, “Mal, jan, erz,
Padishahin dir” (Property, soul, and virtue belong to the Sultan). He can claim any man’s
wife for his enjoyment at any time; his son, or his daughter, or his money, or his property
of any sort; there is no use refusing—a man does not own himself, or his wife, or his
children; the Sultan owns them all, and it is only by his grace that he permits his subjects
to have anything, and he can resume it at any time, for half an hour, or forever. Besides,
anybody’s head would come off that refused. If the Sultan asks a millionaire in
Constantinople to send him half his wealth, the millionaire must not refuse; he himself is
simply a steward; if the Sultan wants it all it must go to him, and the millionaire must
beg bread for a living. At the same time he must praise the Sultan, because the Sultan is
God on earth. If he refuses to send his wife or daughter to the Sultan’s bed, or his son or
money for whatever uses they are wanted to supply, the Sultan has a right to kill him,
and take all his possessions by force, because the man was not a faithful slave.
“But I cannot believe this,” says the American in his free, peaceful country. “It is not
natural. How can a man be considered as God, owning everything, not in a spiritual
sense, but in a very material, pecuniary, and male sense?”

Go to Turkey, get naturalized there, become a Turkish subject, and you will understand it
fully, and perhaps shockingly. Of course, if you go as an American citizen, with plenty of
money, travel under the escort of soldiers, or Zapties, get presented by the American
minister to the Sultan, are entertained in the palace, and receive handsome presents, you
will not understand it at all; very likely not believe it; you may come home and praise
the Sultan like the rest.

The natural question is, I know, “Do the Sultans, any of them, carry this theory into
practice? Has the present Sultan?” Yes; and not once or twice, but thousands of times. To
be sure, they do not go in person on such errands; they depute their officers and soldiers
to do what they wish. I have shown how the history of the Armenians illustrates it, in the
seizure of their property, the forced conversion of their boys into troops to fight against
their parents, the appropriation of their wives and daughters, to be given to the Sultan.
As to the present Sultan, I have already spoken of Bahri Pasha’s exploit in carrying off
by force several Armenian young brides, and girls, and presenting them to the Sultan,
and his being decorated and promoted for it. While on his way, he had to pass through
Trebizond, and the Armenians fired on him to rescue the women, but failed. They forgot
that all women belong to the Sultan, and they made a mistake in firing on one of his
officers. He at once ordered all the Armenians in Trebizond to be slaughtered. Some of
the richest of the nation lived there; every penny was taken from them, most of them
were killed, and their wives and children, and those of them who survived are begging
bread. And all through Armenia the girls and young brides are being looked over to pick
out the best looking ones for the Sultan’s harem.

Once for all, Armenia is not America. The Turks, the Kurds, the Circassians, the
Georgians, though they may be like Americans, are like American Indians only. The
Sultan is not a president, and his divine right to kill any man, appropriate any property,
or enjoy any woman, is not like the Constitution of the United States. People who think
that the Sultan would not do or be allowed to do such things because no ruler they are
familiar with does them, that it is impossible they can happen in Armenia because they
could not happen in America, that the Armenians must have provoked them in some
way, because it is hard to believe any ruler could do so in pure wantonness or from
deliberate policy, are reasoning from wrong premises. They did happen, and are
happening,—see the consular reports; were perfectly unprovoked,—see the plentiful
proofs that the Armenians carry no arms, and cannot even defend themselves from
murder, or their wives from dishonor before their eyes. Why it is done, and how much
more is to be done, I have explained repeatedly.
THE SUBLIME PORTE AND THE MOHAMMEDAN RELIGION.

The Sublime Porte, or in Turkish Babi-Ali, is the cabinet of the Turkish government, as
follows:—

1. The Grand Vezir, or Prime Minister.

2. The Minister of the Interior.
3. The Minister of Foreign Affairs.
4. The Superintendent of the Cabinet Council.
5. The Commander-in-chief, or Minister of War.
6. The Minister of the Navy.
7. The Minister of Finance.
8. The Minister of Commerce and Public Buildings.
9. The Minister of Sacred Properties.
10. The Minister of Education.
11. The Sheik-ul-Islam, or religious head.

There is no election in Turkey; all officers are appointed by the Sultan, who can dismiss
any of them at any time, and appoint some one else, and I have already explained why he
almost always appoints bad ones. The Sublime Porte has no power to decide anything; it
is simply a farce council to cheat the European powers; a dumb tool in the hands of the
Sultan. For instance, the Sultan calls the Grand Vezir, the president of the Sublime Porte,
into his presence, and tells him such a question is to be discussed in such a way, and this
or that conclusion reached. “Very well, my Lord and Master,” says the Grand Vezir; he
goes to the Sublime Porte palace, and says to the council: “To-day I was permitted to
come into the presence of His Majesty the Sultan, and he instructed me that I must bring
such a question before you, and after we discuss it in such a manner, we must come to
such a decision.” Then all of them stand up and say, “Sultan’s will be done,” and that is
all; their “decision” is announced to the Sultan, and he “sanctions” it. There is no
discussion for days or weeks, as in England or here; it is all cut short. The Sublime Porte
can decide any question in a few minutes. This is the sort of thing Mr. Carlyle wanted.
You have seen the beautiful effects of it.

The question naturally arises, Why does the Sultan keep a Sublime Porte, since he
decides everything himself?

There are three reasons.

First, it is the old custom. All the other Sultans have had one, and he might offend the
Turks if he abolished it.

Second, as the Sultan can do no wrong, there must be somebody else to lay blame on. He
is the representative of God and Prophet Mohammed. If there is any mistake in any
decision, he is not responsible for it; the Sublime Porte is responsible.

Third, because he has relations with the European powers, and if any decision needs to
be reversed, it can be if it is that of the Sublime Porte; but if it were the personal decision
of the Sultan it could not be changed, because he is considered immutable, just as God
is.

When people read about the Sublime Porte after this, I hope they will understand that
there is not really any Sublime Porte; that it is a mere name, an echo, a farce, a show to
bunco the world with.

Some newspaper and other writers think it is “impartial” to say that the Sultan means
well, but he has a “corrupt ministry”; that it is the Sublime Porte that ruins the Turkish
Empire; if it were left to the Sultan, he would reform the country; he would not let the
Armenians be massacred. Put no faith in such ignorant rubbish. The Sultan dictates
everything; and if any minister has the sense and courage to suggest any improvement,
the Sultan dismisses him, saying that it is his own business to consider the improvements
of the country and not that of any one else. The governors would not dare to order the
Kurds and the Turks to wreak their worst and vilest will on the Armenians without direct
orders from the Sultan. The Sultan originates all these cruelties. The recent Grand Vezir,
Said Pasha, at one time was a very decent Turk. When he differed with the Sultan about
massacreing the Armenians, the Sultan threatened to kill him, and he had to fly to the
English embassy for protection. Murad Bey was another good Turk who remonstrated
against the cruelties; his life was threatened, and he fled to Europe; now he is in Egypt,
denouncing the Sultan in the press and in letters. The Sultan sentenced him to death, and
asked the British government to hand him over to the Turkish officers; but the
representative of the British government in Cairo refused. Just before the Armenian
atrocities in Constantinople, the members of the Sublime Porte tried to have the
Armenian grievances redressed, and the people pacified; the Sultan would have no such
pottering, and ordered the soldiers to kill the Armenians in the streets. But this was a rare
piece of virtue in the Porte. Mostly they are as bad as the Sultan himself, for he appoints
men of his own stripe. Good men would not be useful tools. The Sultan has another trick
of management; before making any one a member of the Porte, he tries to find out
whether he is a friend to any of the ministers already in; if so, he will not appoint him.
On the other hand, if the man happens to be an enemy to one of the members, he is
almost sure of appointment. The Sublime Porte, therefore, is a group of mutual enemies,
hating one another, and ready to betray one another at any time. He thinks if they are
friendly, they may unite and depose him some day. Besides this, there are more
detectives in the Sublime Porte, watching the ministers on behalf of the Sultan, than
there are members. They keep the Sultan informed about the situation. If any minister or
officer acts contrary to the wishes of the Sultan, he is marked for death.

THE SHEIK-UL-ISLAM.

Sheik-ul-Islam means chief of Islam—the Mohammedan religion. His office is solely

religious; he has nothing to do with politics. He sees that the mosques and priests are
kept in order, and the religious services properly conducted; and there are many
questions among the Mohammedans which are settled without going to a magistrate, by
the Sheik-ul-Islam, or by his deputies, called Muftees. These Muftees can be found in
every city in Turkey. The Sheik-ul-Islam and his representatives issue Fetvas (religious
decrees) according to the Koran.

There is no inconsistency between this and what I have said before about the Sultan
being the representative of Mohammed, and therefore the chief of his religion. Both the
Sultan and the Sheik-ul-Islam are the heads of it, just as the Greek emperor and the
Patriarch were of the Greek church, and the relative position is about the same. The
Sheik-ul-Islam is the special head of the ecclesiastical organization. The Sultan appoints
him, but once appointed, if he is insubordinate and opposes the Sultan, the latter cannot
suppress or replace him without grave scandal to the Mohammedan world. It is like
Henry II and Becket; it is easier to make a head of a church than to rule him afterwards.
It is like the Emperors and the Popes in the Middle Ages; and as with them, sometimes
the Sheik-ul-Islam joins with political officers to depose the Sultan, and his fetva, or
decree, makes it legal. When Abdul Aziz was deposed, the then Sheik-ul-Islam,
Khairollah Effendi, issued the fetva for it, reluctantly, for Heussein Avni Pasha forced
him to do it under threat of death. As Heussein’s own head was in immediate peril, he
had no scruples about the Sheik-ul-Islam’s. Every fetva has two questions and one
answer. A case is set forth; after a brief discussion the question Olourni (To be?) and
Olmazmi (Not to be?) are asked, and the answer is given as either Olour or Olmaz (To
be, or Not to be). The fetva which Heussein forced the Sheik-ul-Islam to sign was
something like this:—“If a Sultan should prove to be unworthy to govern his people, is it
necessary to uphold him or not?” The answer was Olmaz, and Abdul Aziz was deposed.
 BREADSELLER.
Zeibeck. Softa.
Irregular Soldier. Mohammedan Teacher.

MOHAMMEDANISM AND THE INTERNAL STATE OF

TURKEY.

Nobody who has not lived in Turkey can realize how hopeless, almost self-contradictory,
it is to talk of “reforming” Turkey. It could not be reformed and be Mohammedan
Turkey; the lack of reform or power of reform is just what makes it what it is. The root
of the evil is Mohammedanism itself; it is embodied social stagnation, corruption,
ultimate ruin. Neither the Sultan nor the Turks can improve the state of the Empire, even
if they wished. The usual “broad-minded” statements about Mohammed and his religion
are simply elaborations of ignorance, made up out of men’s own minds, and what they
think must be true. It is customary for writers to talk in this fashion:
—“Mohammedanism is a half-way house to Christianity; Mohammed converted the
heathen Arabs to a belief in the true God. Mohammed established a great religion and a
great Empire,” etc., etc. There is no truth in this, for all its plausible sound.
Mohammedanism is not even on the road to Christianity; and Arabia, Asia Minor, and
Palestine were all much better off before the Mohammedan conquest than after it.
Buddhism and Brahmanism are better religions than Mohammedanism. The Chinese, the
Japanese, the people of India are much better than the Turks. The Chinese Emperor and
the Japanese Mikado are far better men than the Mohammedan Sultan. The heathen
religions rear better men than Mohammedanism. The Mongols are more humane and
sympathetic than the Turks. Heathenism at its worst, though a low form of religion, is
really a form of religion; but Mohammedanism is not a religion at all. Then what is it? It
is a system of imposture and false pretense, and of lives of human lust and cruelty.
Mohammed practiced all these, and his successors have done the same, and taught the
same ever since; and the system means just that now, and nothing else. There is neither
love nor sympathy, manliness nor humanity in Mohammedanism. Can a system lacking
all these be considered a religion? This is the substance of Mohammed’s teachings:
—“Love your fellow believers, hate and slay all who refuse to accept your religion.
Marry as many wives as you can afford; if you can afford but one do not repine, for you
shall have seven thousand to enjoy in Paradise. If you conquer a country, show no mercy
to the people unless they embrace Islam; if they refuse, either kill them or make slaves of
them.” What sort of reforms can you expect in Armenia, or in Turkey, when the very
religion that is to make people better, inculcates such principles? If one does not know a
language he cannot speak it; if he has not a principle he will not practice it; how can the
Sultan, a vicious man to begin with, trained in a religion calculated to make a cruel and
licentious animal even out of a decent man, reform anything? His very religion forbids
it; he cares nothing for the religion when it stands in his way, but he will follow its
injunctions to please the Mohammedans, especially when they gratify and justify his
worst passions.

I shall be asked if the Mohammedans do not believe in one God, and the same God as
the Christian; and if that does not make it a religion, and very near that of Christians.
Yes, they do; and so do the devils. That is what Mohammedanism is, the religion of
devils. Most of the Turkish conversation consists of oaths and smut. I do not mean
among the common people—theirs is nothing else—but of the educated upper classes,
their scholars, teachers, governors, and priests. I came in contact with them for years,
and I hated to listen to them, their talk was so full of cursing and filth. You never see the
fruits of the spirit in them; only the fruits of the flesh. They do not understand what
spiritual life is; with them all is sense,—eating and drinking, finery and lust,—lust above
all, everywhere and always, like cattle. They seem never able to forget sex and its uses.
Some people think the climate makes the Turks lazy; it is enough on that point to say
that Constantinople is almost exactly in the same latitude as New York, and Smyrna as
St. Louis. The Turkish climate is a temperate and salubrious one, with no greater
extremes of temperature than the United States; not tropical or enervating. Nor is it their
race that makes the Turks lazy; they were not so at the outset. It is their religion and the
habits it breeds. Their minds and bodies are enervated by the unwholesome nervous
excitation of lust, their energies further sapped by a falsehood that leaves no room for
aspiration, their vanity as a military caste in not working takes all the spirit of manly
enterprise out of them. If the climate enervates the Turks, why does it not the Christians?
In the very same cities you find the Christians rich, enterprising, full of energy; the Turks
poor, ignorant, unambitious, and lazy. The religion makes all the difference. Christianity
teaches purity, sympathy, and industry; Mohammedanism teaches impurity, hate, and
sloth. The pure life of the Christian conserves all the energies; the hopes of Christianity
give vigor and endurance. The promise of each for the future gives the clue to the history
of each; the Christian heaven of unity with God, the Mohammedan heaven of a lot of
street dogs and sluts.

Here I must comment on the extraordinary statement of Alexander Webb, at the

Parliament of Religions in Chicago. Mr. Webb was an American consul in the East, and
became a convert to Mohammedanism, or professes to have done so; it is not very hard
to guess what part of that so-called religion attracted him. He said the religion of
Mohammed teaches the Fatherhood of God, and the Brotherhood of Humanity. Now, as
a fact, Mohammedans believe in neither one. As to God, they believe he is a monarch,
and that no one can approach him; they have the same idea the Jews had. “Our Father
who art in Heaven” is a purely Christian aspiration, not that of any other religion on
earth; it is Christianity alone that teaches the Fatherhood of God. And Mohammedans
directly ridicule the idea of God the Father, or of a Son of God. They say God is not
married, and cannot be a father; and that when they go to heaven they will not be in his
presence, nor wish to be, but will have a separate heaven, to enjoy their wives in. They
look at everything from a sexual or sensual standpoint. As to brotherhood, there is no
such thing in Mohammedanism; even sons of the same mother are not brothers in
feeling. A Mohammedan has not confidence enough, even in his brother, to show his
wives to him, and even in heaven they will have to live in different places on account of
their wives. How can there be brotherhood without love or purity? And we have seen
and know what the “brotherhood” of Mohammedans to other nations and religions is;
there can be no relations whatever but of master and slave, or murderer and corpse, or
violator and victim. The impudence of this talk of brotherhood is fathomless.

And then he said he was proud to be a convert to Islam, because that meant believing in
purity! This is more outrageously impudent still. His ideal of purity must be a curious
one if he finds more in Mohammedanism than in Christianity; in a religion with a
heaven stuffed with concubines than in one where even earth is sprinkled with nuns; in
one that makes Titanic lust its crowning reward, as if men were so feeble in sexual
desires that they needed to be stimulated, than in one which makes chastity its key-note,
and pronounces the very coveting of more than one wife a spiritual adultery; in one that
prescribes polygamy (that is, keeping erotic turbulence stirred up much oftener and
longer than it naturally would be), than in one that allows but one wife, and smiles on
getting along without that; in one whose devotees are ashamed of foul language, and
even of foul thoughts, than in one whose devotees are rank and rotten with lustful ideas
and talk to correspond.

The whole Mohammedan system is designed to make the gratification of lust as easy and
plentiful as possible short of a promiscuity that would lead to civil anarchy. A
Mohammedan can divorce his wife any time he pleases by paying back her dower, and
marry another and do likewise; every week, or day if he sees fit, and he can remarry and
redivorce the first one as often as he pleases. It is like trading horses; as little sentiment
or morality in one as the other; the slightest possible regulation of sheer animal desire.
There is, however, one form or divorce which is complete, and does not allow of
remarriage until another marriage has intervened; that is called the achden docuza (three
to nine) divorce, from the terms the husband uses in doing it, “I divorce you three to
nine.” Nobody knows what it means or meant. After this, if he wants his wife back, he
must get somebody else to marry and divorce her regularly; and as this is perilous,
because the second husband after marrying her may take a notion to keep her, or anyway
keep her much longer than the first one relishes, or demand a large sum of money, the
usual plan is to fix on a very poor man, or a blind beggar (preferably blind, so that he
cannot see the wife, and be so charmed by her beauties that he will wish to keep her), get
him to become the woman’s husband for a few days, and then pay him something to
divorce her. Then the first can marry her again if he chooses.

There are many more specimens of Mohammedan “purity” too shameful to write, and
too shameful to read; I cannot soil the paper with them. Doubtless they are part of Mr.
Webb’s pride in being a Mohammedan. But I must mention one more engine of
corruption which lies at the very root of Mohammedanism itself: the pilgrimage to
Mecca, to the birthplace of Mohammed in Arabia. Once a year Mohammedan pilgrims
from every quarter of the world go to Mecca to pay homage to their beloved prophet;
averaging a million a year. It is their duty to sacrifice animals there, and about a million
are so sacrificed. This is done on the hills which surround the great temple, the greatest
mosque in the world. It is a square building, which covers several acres of land. Just in
the cluster is the Holy Well, called Zemzem. Mohammedans believe that if they drink of
that water, hell-fire cannot burn them, and every pilgrim does so; then they begin to die
from cholera to the tune of fifty thousand a year or so, for the well is a mere cesspool.
You see, after cutting the throats of the animals, they leave the filth and blood just as
they are, for the Mohammedan religion does not allow the sacrifice to be touched. The
sandy soil absorbs this putrid filth, which leaches into the well. But it is a great merit to
die on the spot where Mohammed was born; one goes straight to heaven if he does. That
is not the worst, however; they fill bottles with that water, and carry it to their families,
and friends throughout the Turkish Empire, Persia, and India, from which cholera is
spread abroad over the world.
The pilgrims do not take their wives as far as the birthplace of Mohammed, but leave
them half-way, and on reaching Mecca they marry temporarily. About 20,000 prostitutes
there make a business of being short-term wives of the pilgrims, getting $5 to $25 from
each, and being his wife for anywhere from a day to a fortnight, so that each woman
marries from fifty to a hundred pilgrims a year. This is not prostitution; it is religion—
and Mohammedan “purity.” Mecca is considered the most holy spot on earth by
Mohammedans; but it is the most corrupt spot. It is a hell. And the Mohammedan
Paradise is worse than Mecca.

In one word, Mohammedans have no right to exist, politically, socially, or religiously. In

the first they have wrought nothing but ruin; in the second nothing but corruption; in the
third nothing but devilishness. They are working nothing else now in either of the three.
They have never built up anything; they are pure destroyers. Anything which is built in
any Mohammedan country is built both by Christian money and by Christian architects;
Mohammedans have neither the money, the architects, nor the sense. The day one
becomes a Mohammedan he loses his intellect, his skill, and his common sense.
Mohammedanism is a poison fatal to any good gifts or graces; it cultivates in him
falsehood, cruelty, and lust. It was sent by God for a curse to the Christians; as a
punishment, just as the Philistines were sent to the people of Israel.
V.
 THE GREAT POWERS AND THE ARMENIAN
QUESTION.
There was no Armenian question till the time of the present Sultan; under
Abdul Aziz, whatever his faults as a ruler or a man, the Armenians
prospered well, and though the whole system of administration is bad,
corrupt, and uncertain, they had no special grievance as a race to complain
of. I have already referred to Abdul Hamid’s usurpation, his Bulgarian
atrocities, his famous war against Russia, and the Congress in Berlin in
which the powers ordered him to execute reforms in Armenia, and report to
them, and the Sultan signed the treaty promising to do it. This was in 1878.
The Sultan lost no time in violating the treaty, and not only so, but in acting
grossly contrary to it. He called in Circassians and Kurds to settle in the
midst of Armenians, and confiscated Armenian lands for them to settle on.
The Armenians were far worse off than before the treaty; but foolishly
depending on the powers, they did not try to arm themselves for the future.
They have had plenty of chance to repent in blood and tears, agony and
shame, their faith that Christian nations would not ignore a solemn
obligation, voluntarily entered into, to save a whole people from being
exterminated by fire and sword. England was the worst of these sinners, for
she had taken on special obligations by a separate treaty, and forced those
who would have taken the Sultan by the throat to let go.

THE ANGLO-TURKISH CONVENTION.

This took place at the same time as the Berlin Congress; it was simply
between Turkey and England.
 Article I. “If Batoum, Ardahan, Kars, or any of them shall be retained by Russia,
and if any attempt shall be made at any future time by Russia to take possession
of any further territory of His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan, in Asia, as fixed by the
Definitive Treaty of Peace, England engages to join His Imperial Majesty, the
Sultan, in defending them by force of arms.

“In return, His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan, promises England to introduce
necessary reforms, to be agreed upon later between the two powers, into the
government and for the protection of the Christian and other subjects of the Porte
in these territories; and in order to enable England to make necessary provisions
for executing her engagement, His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan, further consents
to assign the Island of Cyprus to be occupied and administered by England.

Article VII. “If Russia restores to Turkey Kars and the other conquests made by
her in Armenia during the last war, the Island of Cyprus will be evacuated by
England, and the convention of the 4th of June, 1878, will be at an end.”

When England was preparing this private treaty, the English fleet was on
the Sea of Marmora, at the gate of the Bosphorus, threatening Russia, to
make her withdraw her soldiers from the gates of Constantinople, for the
conquering Russian army had reached the suburbs, and encamped at San
Stefano, only eight or ten miles away. But for England, Russia would have
captured Constantinople, and kept it. But England backed Turkey, and the
other powers backed England, and Russia reluctantly withdrew her troops.
But Russia has never forgiven England for it; and if England wishes to help
the Armenians, no matter how many are massacred, Russia will help
Turkey, while the others side with neither. As to there ever being a
European concert to reform Armenia, a pleasant dream which has deluded
many thousands, I have always laughed at it, and I laugh at it still. The
powers will never act together for any such purpose. It is not “practical
politics” to think of it. The real center of action is not Germany or Russia,
but England, for several reasons. One is that London is the money capital of
the world. Money rules; money buys force. The richest nation is the
strongest. What does Lombard street say? is the vital question. The second
is her navy, the strongest in the world; stronger that that of any other two
nations combined; perhaps in actual fight a match for all combined. The
third is that her possessions are everywhere; she is a local power in every
quarter of the globe; she has to pass by everybody’s doors in managing her
colonies. So I will begin with England.

ENGLAND AND THE ARMENIAN QUESTION.

If England had wished to solve this question, she could have done it long
ago; but she never cared to. When Mr. Gladstone was in power, he tried to
do it, but his Cabinet overbore him. He did, however, show by isolated
cases what power England had if she chose to exercise it. After I was
banished by the Turkish government, two native Christian ministers
supplied my pulpit. They were sentenced to death on a false charge, but
Gladstone threatened the Sultan, and the latter commuted the sentence to
banishment. These ministers were Professors Thoumaian and Kayayian,
who are now in England with their families. What could be done on a small
scale could be done on a large one. I will give here some of the speeches of
Gladstone on the Armenian question; then compare Lord Salisbury with
him and his policy.

W. E. Gladstone.

He assails Turkey’s Intolerable Misgovernment and Emphasizes the Value

of Impartial American Testimony.

[By Cable to The New York Herald.]

London, Aug. 6, 1895.—A pro-American meeting, presided over by the Duke of

Westminster, was held at Chester this afternoon. Mr. Gladstone was among those
present, and upon entering the hall was received with great enthusiasm.

In addressing the meeting, Mr. Gladstone said he had attended rather to meet the
expectation that he would be present than because he had any important
contribution to make to the discussion of the subject under consideration. The
question before the meeting, he said, was not a party question, neither was it
strictly a religious question, although the sufferers, on whose behalf the meeting
 was called, were Christians. The evil arose from the fact that the sufferers were
under an intolerably bad government—one of the worst, in fact, that ever existed.
A resolution would be proposed presenting, with justice and firmness, the true
view of the matter. Mr. Gladstone added that as America had no political interest
in the Levant her witnesses were doubly entitled to credit.

Important Treaty Provisions.

The treaty of 1856, Mr. Gladstone continued, gave the powers the right to march
into Armenia and take the government of the country out of the hands of Turkey,
and under the treaty of 1878 the Sultan was bound to carry out reforms. The ex-
Premier made three proposals:—First, that the demands of the powers should be
moderate; second, that no promises of the Turkish authorities should be accepted;
and third, that the powers should not fear the word “coercion.”

“We have reached a critical position,” said Mr. Gladstone, in conclusion, “and the
honor of the powers is pledged to the institution of reforms in Armenia.”

A resolution was then proposed expressing the conviction that the government
would have the support of the entire nation in any measures it might adopt to
secure in Armenia reforms guaranteeing to the inhabitants safety of life, honor,
religion, and property, and that no reforms can be effected which are not placed
under the continuous control of the great powers of Europe. The resolution was
seconded by the Rev. Canon Malcolm MacColl, and was adopted.

Says Baseness and Villany Have Reached a Climax in Turkey’s Treatment of

Armenia.

[From The New York Herald.]

London, Dec. 27, 1895.—Murad Bey, formerly Ottoman Commissioner of the

Turkish debt, who recently fled from Constantinople to Paris, sent to Mr.
Gladstone a few days ago a pamphlet which he had published in Paris, entitled
“The Yildiz Palace and the Sublime Porte,” with a view to enlightening public
opinion on Turkish affairs. In the course of his reply acknowledging the receipt of
the pamphlet, Mr. Gladstone disavowed any feeling of enmity toward the Turks
and Mussulmans generally. He said:—“I have felt it my duty to make it known
that the Mohammedans, including the Turks, suffer from the bad government of
the Sultan. I have heartily wished success to every effort made toward ending the
great evil. Still, Turks and other Mohammedans are not, so far as I know,
plundered, raped, murdered, starved, and burned; but this is the treatment that the
 Sultan knowingly deals out to his Armenian subjects daily. There are degrees of
suffering, degrees of baseness and villany among men, and both seem to have
reached their climax in the case of Armenia.”

His Masterly Speech in Chester Re-enforced with a letter to a Turk.

[From The New York Sun.]

London, Aug. 10.—Once more have the wonderful power and the true greatness
of England’s Grand Old Man been demonstrated in the remarkable revival of
popular interest in the fate of Armenia. The whole nation is marveling over his
great speech at Chester, and there are no words, even among those who have
always been his political opponents, save those of sympathy and admiration.
Nobody is any longer foolish enough to deny the main features of the fearful
atrocities in Armenia, and there is no possible doubt of the accuracy of the latest
reports that thousands near the scene of the massacres are perishing of starvation.

The only protest against Mr. Gladstone’s speech has been a long letter from
Khalef Khalid, a conspicuous Turk, who asks the Grand Old Man why he hates
and denounces the Turks so indiscriminately, when as many and as great outrages
against the Mohammedans have been perpetrated by Christians as were ever
committed by the subjects of Islam.

Mr. Gladstone’s reply was made public to-day. It is one of the most pointed
epistles the old man ever wrote. He says:—“I entirely disclaim the hatred and
hostility to the Turks, or any race of men, which you ascribe to me. I do not doubt
that you write in entire good faith, but your statements of facts are
unauthenticated. I proceed only upon authenticated statements. I make no charge
against the Turks at large, but against a Turkish government. I make the charges
which they have been proved guilty of by public authority. In my opinion, I have
been a far better friend to the Ottoman Empire than have the Sultan and his
advisers. I have always recommended the granting of reasonable powers of local
self-government, which would have saved Turkey from terrible losses. This good
advice has been spurned, and in consequence Turkey has lost 18,000,000 of
people, and may lose more. Pray weigh these words.”—

The birthday of the Ex-Premier was made the occasion for an anti-Turkish
demonstration.

Outrages and Abominations of 1876 in Bulgaria Repeated in Armenia in

1894.
[From The New York Herald.]

London, Dec. 29, 1894.—Mr. Gladstone celebrated his eighty-fifth birthday to-
day, and was the recipient of hundreds of letters and telegrams of congratulation
and parcels containing birthday gifts. Mr. Gladstone was in remarkably good
health and spirits, and, despite the stormy weather, drove through the village of
Hawarden to the church, where he met a deputation of Armenian Christians from
Paris and London. The deputation presented a silver chalice to the church. The
chalice was presented to the Rev. Stephen Gladstone, son of the ex-Premier, and
rector of the Hawarden church, in recognition of the interest his father has taken
in the Armenian outrages. Mr. Gladstone, in his reply to the deputation’s address,
said that it was not their duty to assume that all the allegations of outrages were
true, but rather to await the result of the inquiry which had been instituted.
However, he said, the published accounts pointed strongly to the conclusion that
the outrages, sins, and abominations committed in 1876 in Bulgaria had been
repeated in 1894 in Armenia. Continuing, Mr. Gladstone said: “Don’t let me be
told that one nation has no authority over another. Every nation, aye, every human
being, has authority in behalf of humanity and justice.” He had been silent, he
said, because he had full confidence that the government knew its duty. If the
allegations made should prove to be true, it was time that the execration of
humanity should force itself upon the ears of the Sultan of Turkey, and make him
sensible of the madness of such a course as was being pursued. Mr. Gladstone, in
conclusion, said:—“The history of Turkey is a sad and painful one. The Turkish
race has not been without remarkable, even fine qualities, but from too many
points of view it has been a scourge which has been made use of by a wise
Providence for the sins of the world. If these tales of murder, violation, and
outrage be true, well, then, they cannot be overlooked, nor can they be made light
of. I have lived to see the Empire of Turkey in Europe reduced to less than one-
half of what it was when I was born. And why? Simply because of its misdeeds,
and the great record written by the hand of Almighty God against its injustice,
lust, and most abominable cruelty. I hope and feel sure that the government of
Great Britain will do everything that can be done to pierce to the bottom of this
mystery, and make the facts known to the world.

“If happily (I speak hoping against hope) the reports be disproved or mitigated, let
us thank God. If, on the other hand, they be established, it will more than ever
stand before the world that there is a lesson, however severe it may be, that can
teach certain people the duty of prudence, and the necessity of observing the laws
of decency, humanity, and justice. If the allegations are true, it is time that there
should be one general shout of execration against these deeds of wickedness from
outraged humanity. If the facts are well established, it should be written in letters
of iron upon the records of the world that a government which could be guilty of
 countenancing and covering up such atrocities is a disgrace to Mohammed the
prophet, a disgrace to civilization at large, and a disgrace to mankind. Now that is
strong language, but strong language ought to be used when the facts are strong.
But strong language ought not to be used without the strength of facts.

“I have counseled you to be still and keep your judgment in suspense; but as the
evidence grows, the case darkens, and my hopes dwindle and decline, and as long
as I have voice it will be uttered in behalf of humanity and truth. I wish you
heartily every blessing, and also wish with every heartiness prosperity to your
nation, however dark the present may seem.”

Lord Salisbury.

Now we come to the present Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury. He is reputed

a great statesman. That should mean that he has accomplished something
great. Well, what? I know of nothing, have heard of nothing. Has he saved
any country? Has he elevated any? Has he done any public action that can
be set down to his credit? He has hindered some good ones, that is all. On
the Armenian question he has done enormous harm. If he is not a great
hypocrite, there is no use comparing a man’s words with his actions. I have
always told my friends that nothing good could be hoped for from him, for
morally he is worse than the Sultan. An eminent English clergyman told me
that Lord Salisbury is another Sultan, and I believe him. Here are a few of
Lord Salisbury’s deliverances; see how they agree:—

[From The New York World, August 16, 1895.]

Lord Salisbury to Sir Philip Currie, the British Ambassador to Constantinople:

—“The Porte must accept the proposals of the Powers unconditionally, or
England would use sharper means than those adopted by Lord Rosebery to settle
affairs in Armenia.”—[July 30, 1895.

Lord Salisbury, in a speech in London about the time of the above, said, “The
concert of Europe on the Armenian question is complete, and England has the
loyal support of other powers to reform Armenia.”

At another time we note:—“There is every reason to believe that the Chinese

government is sincerely desirous of punishing the perpetrators of the outrages and
those who connived at them. Should any lukewarmness become discernible, it
will become our duty to supply its defect.
 “With respect to Armenia, we have accepted the policy which our predecessors
initiated, and our efforts will be directed to obtaining an adequate guarantee for
the carrying out of reform. We have received the most loyal support from both
France and Russia. The permanence of the Sultan’s rule is involved in the conduct
he pursues. If the cries of misery continue, the Sultan must realize that Europe
will become weary of appeals, and the fictitious strength which the powers have
given the empire will fail it. The Sultan will make a calamitous mistake if he
refuses to accept the advice of the European powers relative to the reforms.” The
House of Lords adopted the address in reply to the Queen’s speech.

After the above strong words, Lord Salisbury backed down and sneaked out
of his bold attitude in this way. (Jan. 31, 1896.) See how he asserts, first that
England cannot do anything for the Armenians, and second that it is not her
duty to do anything:—

[From The New York Tribune.]

“The Prime Minister expressed sympathy with the Armenians, but denied that
Great Britain was under obligation to declare war against the Sultan of Turkey in
order to compel him to govern justly, and cited the treaties in proof of his
contention. He ascribed the atrocities to the passions of race and creed. He
believed that the Sultan’s government was wretched and impotent, but there was
no ground for imagining that the Sultan had instigated the massacres. It might be
asked why Europe did not interfere. He could only answer for England. She had
lacked the power to do the only thing necessary to end the troubles, namely, to
militarily occupy Turkish provinces. None of the powers wished so to occupy
them.

“Lord Salisbury said he concurred in the belief that the only authority, albeit it
was an evil one, in that country was the prestige of the Sultan’s name. Patience
must be exercised, and time must be given to His Majesty to enforce the reforms
he had promised. He remarked upon the gradual return of order in Anatolia during
the last few weeks, although he admitted that these signs should not be trusted too
much. He concluded by declaring that if Great Britain did not co-operate with the
other powers, she must act against them, which would lead to calamities far more
awful than the Armenian massacres.”

Ambassador Currie instructed not to exert Undue Pressure on the Sultan.

[From The New York World, 1895.]

 London, Nov. 23, 1895.—It can be authoritatively stated that Lord Salisbury’s
instructions to Sir Philip Currie, the British Ambassador to Turkey, who left
England a few days ago on his return to his post of duty, are to refrain from
exerting undue pressure on the Sultan for the execution of the reforms in Armenia,
and to give the Porte time to recover from the existing administrative anarchy, and
appoint authorities through whom the reforms must be effected.

Sir Philip has taken with him an autograph letter from the Queen to the Sultan.
This is supposed to be a reply to a letter the Sultan sent to her with the
communication he sent to Lord Salisbury, which the latter read at the meeting of
the National Union of Conservatives at Brighton, on Tuesday night last.

It is reported that the Queen will invite the Sultan to visit England, when the time
shall be auspicious. The anxiety at the Foreign Office in regard to the East has
greatly lessened during the week.

England possessed the Island of Cyprus, and it became her duty to look
after the reforms in Turkey. But now Salisbury denies it, saying that it is not
her duty, and meantime says that time must be given to the Sultan of
Turkey, as if all the time had not been given him since the Berlin treaty of
1878.

Salisbury used another silly trick, persuading the Queen of England to write
a letter to the Sultan and appeal to his good nature; as if the Sultan had a
good nature; but the Queen wrote the letter.

A strong criticism by the editor of the New York “Press” on Lord

Salisbury’s speech.

February 3, 1896.

“We confess that we are at a loss to comprehend the meaning of Lord Salisbury’s
Armenian speech. We do not know what to make of it when he says that the
Berlin Treaty “bound the signatory powers, that, if the Sultan promulgated certain
reforms, they would watch over the progress of these reforms. Nothing more.” We
cannot understand him when he declares that the Cyprus Convention ‘contains no
trace of an understanding to interfere in behalf of the Sultan’s subjects.’ When
Russia made, in March, 1878, a treaty with Turkey, called the treaty of San
Stefano, Great Britain became alarmed lest Russia should secure too much
influence in Constantinople. Russia then held some Armenian provinces
bordering on her territory, and it seemed clear that it was her purpose to seize
others. England protested to the Sultan against the treaty of San Stefano, but the
government of the Ottoman Porte was helpless against the Czar, and the Sultan
declared that he must adhere to the treaty. Great Britain then secretly bound
herself to aid Turkey by force of arms in preventing Russia from appropriating
further Armenian provinces, Turkey agreeing, on her part, to reform her local
administration in her remaining Armenian provinces and assigning the island of
Cyprus to be occupied and administered by Great Britain.

“Great Britain, meanwhile, had incited the other powers of Europe to take action
against the treaty of San Stefano. Austria was induced to suggest a European
Congress. Russia at first refused to go into this Congress; but, seeing that all the
great powers were uniting against her, she consented to attend. The result of this
Congress was the Treaty of Berlin, signed by the six powers,—England, Russia,
Germany, France, Austria, and Italy. By this treaty Turkey was stripped of
Bulgaria, Servia, and Roumania, and Russia was deprived of all she had won
during the Turko-Russian war, except the Armenian provinces which she still
controls. By this treaty, also, the signatory powers became guardians and trustees
of the Ottoman Porte, pledging themselves that religious freedom should be
secured in the Turkish Empire, and that Armenian Christians should be protected
against the Circassians and Kurds.

“We are puzzled, therefore, to understand Lord Salisbury when he says that all
these promises did not mean anything. Certainly he ought to know, for, as the
agent of the Disraeli government, it was Lord Salisbury who drafted the
agreements and drew up the promises. For eighteen years Christian civilization
has supposed that they did mean something. But Lord Salisbury says not. He says
that all the powers agreed to do was to ‘watch over the execution of those
reforms’ if they were promulgated.

“What does that mean, anyway? Does it mean, as the Christian world has all
along supposed, that the six powers would engage themselves to see that these
reforms were carried out by Turkey, or does it mean that if the reforms were
carried out they would simply look on; and if the reforms were not carried out, if
ten thousand Armenian homes were destroyed, and four times ten thousand
Armenian citizens were butchered, they would still simply look on?

“Nor do we understand Lord Salisbury when he pleads that it requires time for the
Turkish government to carry out the reforms ‘which the Sultan recently has
accepted.’ Why the Turkish government? There is no Turkish government. There
is a Mohammedan administration, but the government of the Ottoman Porte
expired with the Treaty of Berlin. The Turkish government is vested de facto in
the six signatory powers of the Berlin Congress. Even the local government of
Constantinople itself lies in the hands of these powers. The capital is divided into
six sections, each controlled by a treaty power. Each has its own courts, its own
military, even its own police. When Englishmen wish a wrong to be righted in the
Turkish Empire, or a reform to be executed, they do not request the ‘Turkish
government’ to listen to their appeal. The British Minister summons the Grand
Vezir and orders him to do what is wished. And he does it forthwith, so far as he
is permitted by the orders of the representatives of the other treaty powers. It is in
London, in Berlin, in St. Petersburg, in Paris, in Vienna, and in Rome that the
Turkish government rests.

“It is for these reasons that we are unable to understand what Lord Salisbury
means when he says that the Berlin Treaty and the Cyprus Convention impose no
responsibility for Armenian reforms upon any one save the Sultan. The Cyprus
Convention specifies:—

“Treaty of Defensive Alliance between the British Government and the Sublime
Porte, signed on June 4, 1878:—

Article I. If Batoum, Ardahan, Kars, or any of them shall be retained by

Russia, and if any attempt shall be made at any future time by Russia to
take possession of any further territories of his imperial Majesty, the
Sultan, in Asia, as fixed by the definitive treaty of peace, England
engages to join His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan, in defending them by
force of arms. In return, His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan, promises to
England to introduce necessary reforms, to be agreed upon later between
the two powers, into the government, and for the protection of Christian
and other subjects of the Porte in these territories; and in order to enable
England to make necessary provision for executing her engagement, His
Imperial Majesty, the Sultan, further consents to assign the Island of
Cyprus, to be occupied and administered by England.

“Why, then, does not Lord Salisbury carry out England’s pledges, for which he is
directly responsible, since he made them in her name?

“England must be held to an accounting for the disorders in Armenia. There are
no such disorders in the provinces administered by the Czar, provinces adjoining
those where for the last six years pillage, destruction, and murder have swept
away every sign of government. In the provinces controlled by the Czar the
Armenians have been so well treated, enjoying unquestioned religious freedom
and rights, that there have been not the slightest disorders. But in the provinces
where England pledged reform, the Armenian is butchered daily.

“Does Lord Salisbury mean that so long as Great Britain occupies Cyprus,
pending the execution of reforms, it is better for England that the reforms should
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