Armenian Genocide American Documents

US CONSUL LESLIE DAVIS DESCRIBING ARMENIAN "DEPORTEES" PASSING THROUGH THE HARPOOT PLAIN ON THEIR WAY TO DER ZOR

“All of them were in rags and many . . . almost naked . . . emaciated, sick, diseased, filthy, covered with dirt and vermin . . . driven along for many weeks like herds of cattle, with little to eat . . . There were few men among them, most of the men having been killed by the Kurd before their arrival at Harpoot. Many of the women and children also had been killed and very many others had died on the way . . . Of those who had started, only a small portion were still alive and they were rapidly dying . . . Many Turkish officers and other Turks visited the camps to select the prettiest girls and had their doctors present to examine them . . . Several hundred of the dead and dying scattered about the camp . . . the body of a middle-aged man who had apparently just died or been killed. A number of dead bodies of women and children lay here and there . . . Old men sat there mumbling incoherently. Women with matted hair and sunken eyes sat staring like maniacs. One, whose face has haunted my memory ever since, was so emaciated and the skin was drawn so tightly over her features that her head appeared to be only a lifeless skull. Others were in the spasms of death. Children with bloated bellies were on the ground wallowing in filth. Some were in convulsions. All in the camp were beyond help”.

United States Official records on the Armenian Genocide 1915-1917, pp. 644, doc. NA/RG59/867.4016/392.


CONFIDENTIAL TELEGRAM, AMBASSADOR MORGENTHAU TO SECRETARY OF STATE

Constantinople, 16 July 1915

"Deportation of and excesses against peaceful Armenians is increasing and from harrowing reports of eye witnesses it appears that a campaign of race extermination is in progress under a pretext of reprisal against rebellion. Protests as well as threats are unavailing and probably incite the Ottoman government to more drastic measures as they are determined to disclaim responsibility for their absolute disregard of Capitulations and I believe nothing short of actual force which obviously United States are not in a position to exert would adequately meet the situation. Suggest you inform belligerent nations and mission boards of this."

United States Official records on the Armenian Genocide 1915-1917, pp. 55, document NA/RG59/867.4016/76


 

AMERICAN CONSULATE


No. 71 COPY

Harpoot, 24 July 1915.

HONORABLE HENRY MORGENTHAU, AMERICAN AMBASSADOR, CONSTANTINOPLE.

SIR:

I have the honor to further supplement my reports of June 30th and July 11th (file no. 840. 1) in regard to the expulsion of the Armenians from this region, or, to speak more correctly, the wholesale massacre of these Armenians, as follows...

...it has been no secret that the plan was to destroy the Armenian race as a race, but the methods used have been more cold-blooded and barbarous, if not more effective, than i had at first supposed...

...it seems to be fully established now that practically all who have been sent away from here have been deliberately shot or otherwise killed within one or two days after their departure. This work has not all been done by bands of kurds but has for the most part been that of the gendarmes who accompanied the people from here or of companies of armed  tchetehs  (convicts) who have been released from prison for the purpose of murdering the Armenian exiles...

...i do not believe there has ever been a massacre in the history of the world so general and thorough as that which is now being perpetrated in this region or that a more fiendish, diabolical scheme has ever been conceived by the mind of man...

...it would be that even if all the people had been allowed to perish on the road. As the greater part of them, however, have been actually murdered and as there is no doubt that this was done by order of the government, there can be no pretense that the measure is anything else but a general massacre...

I have the honor to be sir,

Your obedient servant,

(signed): Leslie a. Davis

Consul

Source: NA/RG59/867.4016/269. United States Official Records on The Armenian Genocide 1915-1917. Compiled with an Introduction by Ara Sarafian, London, 2004, PP. 461-462.


HENRY MORGENTHAU'S REPORT OF HIS CONVERSATION WITH TALAAT PASHA

8 August 1915

"I argued in all sorts of ways with him but he said that there was no use, that they had already disposed of three quarters of them, that there were none left in Bitlis, Van, Erzeroum, and that the hatred was so intense now that they have to finish it. I spoke to him about the commercial losses and he said they did not care, that they had figured it out and knew it would not exceed for the banks etc. five million pounds. He said they want to treat the Armenians like we treat the negroes. I think he meant like the Indians. I asked him to make exceptions in some few cases which he promised to do."

United States Diplomacy on the Bosphorus: The Diaries of Ambassador Morgenthau 1913-1916, p. 298