ARMENIA
637
and to have had a common non-Aryan language. Mixed with these proto-Armenians, there was an important Semitic element of Assyrian and Hebrew origin. In the 7th century B.c., between 640 and 600, the country was conquered by an Aryan people, who imposed their language and possibly their name, upon the vanquished, and formed a military aristocracy that was constantly recruited from Persia and Parthia. Politically the two races soon amalgamated, but except in the towns, there was apparently little intermarriage, for the peasants in certain districts closely resemble the proto-Armenians, as depicted on their monuments. After the Arab and Seljuk invasions, there was a large emigration of Aryan and Semitic Armenians to Constantinopole and Cilicia and all that remained of the aristocracy was swept away by the Mongols and Tatars. This perhaps explains the diversity of type and characteristics amongst the modern Armenians. In the recesses of Mount Taurus the peasants are tall, handsome, though somewhat sharp-featured, agile, and brave. In Armenia and Asia Minor they are robust, thick-set, and coarse-featured, with straight black hair and large hooked noses. They are good cultivators of the soil, but are poor, superstitious, ignorant, and unambitious, and they live in semi-subterranean houses as their ancestors did 800 years B.c. The townsmen, especially in the large towns, have more regular features— often of the Persian type. They are skilled artisans, bankers, and merchants, and are remarkable for their industry, their quick intelligence, their aptitude for business, and for that enterprising spirit which led their ancestors, in Roman times, to trade with Scythia, China, and India. The upper classes are polished and well educated, and many have occupied high positions in the public service in Turkey, Russia, Persia, and Egypt. The Armenians are essentially an Oriental people, possessing, like the Jews, whom they resemble in their exclusiveness and widespread dispersion, a remarkable tenacity of race and faculty of adaptation to circumstances. They are frugal, sober, industrious, and intelligent, and their sturdiness of character has enabled them to preserve their nationality and religion under the sorest trials. They are strongly attached to old manners and customs, but have also a real desire for progress which is full of promise. On the other hand they are greedy of gain, quarrelsome in small matters, self-seeking, and wanting in stability; and they are gifted with a tendency to exaggeration and a love of intrigue which has had an unfortunate influence on their history. They are deeply separated by religious differences, and their mutual jealousies, their inordinate vanity, their versatility, and their cosmopolitan character must always be an obstacle to the realization of the dreams of the nationalists. The want of courage and self-reliance, the deficiency in truth and honesty sometimes noticed in connexion with them, are doubtless due to long servitude under an unsympathetic Government. The total number of Armenians is estimated at 2,900,000 (in Turkey, 1,500,000; Russia, 1,000,000;. Persia, 150,000; Europe, America, and East Indies, 250,000). See Abich. Geologie d. armenischen Hochlandes. Wien, 1882. —Bishop. Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan, bond., 1891.— Bliss. Turkey and the Armenian Atrocities. Bond., 1896.— Bryce. Transcaucasia and Ararat, 4th ed. Bond., 1896.—De Coursous. La rebellion armenienne. Paris, 1895.—Bepsius. Armenia and Europe. Bond., 1897.—Murray. Handbook for Asia Minor. Bond., 1895.-—Parly. Papers. Turkey, B, 1895 ; Turkey, B, IB, 1896.—Supan. “ Die Yerbreitung d. Armenier in der asiatischen Turkei, u. in Transkaukasien,” in Pet. Mitth. vol. xlii., 1896.—Tozer. Turkish Armenia and Eastern Asia Minor, 1 1881.—Cholet. Armenie, Kurdistan, et Mesopotamiey According to some estimates the number killed was 50,000 or Bond., 1892.—Bynch. Armenia. 2 vols. 1901. (c. W. W.) more.
occurred, except in six places, in the vilayets to which the scheme of reforms was to apply. At Trebizond they took place just before the Sultan accepted that The mas- sc}ieme anc[ after his acceptance of it they spread rapidly. They were confined to Gregorian and Protestant Armenians. The Roman Catholics were protected by France, the Greek Christians by Russia. The massacre of Syrians, Jacobites, and Chaldees at Urfa and elsewhere, formed no part of the original plan. Orders were given to protect foreigners, and in some cases guards were placed over their houses. The damage to the American buildings at Kharput was due to direct disobedience of orders. The attacks on the bazars were made without warning, during business hours, when the men were in their shops and the women in their houses. Explicit promises were given, in some instances, that there would be no danger to those who opened their shops, but they were deliberately broken. Nearly all those who, from their wealth, education, and influence, would have had a share in the government under the scheme of reforms, were killed and their families ruined by the destruction of their property. Where any attempt at defence was made the slaughter was greatest. The only successful resistance was at Zeitun, where the people received honourable terms after three months’ fighting. In some towns the troops and police took an active part in the massacres. At Kharput artillery was used. In some the slaughter commenced and ended by bugle-call, and in a few instances the Armenians were disarmed beforehand. Wherever a superior official or army officer intervened the massacre at once ceased, and wherever a governor stood firm there was no disturbance. The actual perpetrators of the massacres were the local Moslems, aided by Lazis, Kurds, and Circassians. A large majority of the Moslems disapproved of the massacres, and many Armenians were saved by Moslem friends. But the lower orders were excited by reports that the Armenians, supported by the European Powers, were plotting the overthrow of the Sultan; and their cupidity was aroused by the prospect of wiping out their heavy debts to Armenian pedlars and merchants. No one was punished for the massacres, and many of those implicated in them were rewarded. In some districts, especially in the Kharput vilayet, the cry of “Islam or death” was raised. Gregorian priests and Protestant pastors were tortured, but preferred death to apostasy. Men and women were killed in prison and in churches in cold blood. Churches, monasteries, schools, and houses were plundered and destroyed. In some places there was evidence of the previous activity of secret societies, in others none. The number of those who perished, excluding Constantinople, was 20,000 to 25,000.1 Many were forced to embrace IslMn, and numbers were reduced to poverty. The destruction of property was enormous, the hardest - working and best tax-paying element in the country was destroyed, or impoverished, and where the bread-winners were killed the women and children were left destitute. Efforts by Great Britain and the United States to alleviate the distress were opposed by the authorities, but met with some success. Since the massacres the number of students in the American schools and colleges has increased, and many Gregorian Armenians have become Roman Catholics in order to obtain the protection of France. Ethnology.—The original inhabitants of Armenia are unknown, but, about the middle of the 9th century B.c., the mass of the people belonged to that great family of tribes which seems to have been spread over Western Asia
