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Ernest Yarrow, Christian Missionary And Witness To The Armenian Geno

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  • Ernest Yarrow, Christian Missionary And Witness To The Armenian Geno

    ERNEST YARROW, CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY AND WITNESS TO THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

    February 24, 2015

    In 1924, Yarrow petitioned the United States State Department to
    restore Armenian territory that was lost to Turkey

    Ernest Alfred Yarrow (21 February 1876 - 26 October 1939) was a
    Christian missionary and a witness to the Armenian Genocide. He is
    also known for his leadership of a relief effort carried out by the
    Near East Foundation that saved and cared for tens of thousands of
    Armenian refugees.

    Yarrow was stationed in Van vilayet, Turkey, in 1915 when an
    estimated 55,000 Armenians were massacred there by Turkish troops in
    the earliest stages of the genocide, and he was also an eyewitness
    to the subsequentdefense of Van. He later publicly declared that
    "the Turks and Kurds have declared a holy war on the Armenians and
    have vowed to exterminate them." He also described the Van massacres
    and those which followed across Turkey as an "organized, systematic
    attempt to wipe out the Armenians."

    Early Life

    Ernest Yarrow was born in London, England, to a Primitive Methodist
    family. He and his family moved to the United States when Yarrow
    was one year old. Once in the United States, Yarrow attended the
    Northfield Seminary founded by Evangelist preacher Dwight L. Moody.

    After graduating from there in 1897, he continued his education in
    Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, graduating in 1901. At
    Wesleyan, he also played football, acquiring a reputation for strong
    tackling. He joined the local First Congregational Church then took
    theological courses at the Hartford Seminary. Upon graduating from the
    Hartford Seminary in May 1904, Yarrow married his roommate's sister,
    Jane Tuckley, in August of that year. Yarrow then joined the world
    missionary movement and was sent to Van, Ottoman Empire by the American
    Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Yarrow became very active
    in the Van college where he was in charge of the boys' school.

    After serving for several years, Yarrow returned to the United
    States for a brief visit in 1912. In 1913, however, Yarrow and his
    wife returned to Van to continue with missionary duties. He became
    president of the Van college right beforeWorld War I began.

    Armenian Genocide witness

    Having lost its Christian-majority Balkan possessions in the First
    Balkan War of 1912-13, fears had intensified in the Ottoman government
    that a similar push for independence by the Armenians--Turkey's largest
    remaining Christian minority, situated in the heart of Anatolia--might
    lead to the breakup of Turkey itself. Aware of the Ottomans' growing
    hostility, some Armenians, particularly in the vilayet of Van, had
    begun stockpiling weapons and ammunition for self-defence, fearing
    a repetition of the massacres of 1909, but these activities only
    strengthened Ottoman suspicions of Armenian intentions.

    Following the outbreak of World War I, mutual distrust between Turks
    and Armenians reached almost intolerable levels when, in early 1915,
    Turkey was invaded both by the British at Gallipoli and Russia
    from the north. The Russian thrust into Van vilayet, spearheaded by
    Russo-Armenian units, was quickly blamed by the Ottoman leadership
    on alleged collaboration by the Van Armenians, and extreme measures
    against the mostly defenceless Armenian populace were authorized,
    resulting in massacres and the siege of Van, and precipitating the
    Armenian genocide.

    Van massacres

    In February 1915, the "strong and liberal-minded" governor or vali
    of Van vilayet was replaced with Cevdet Bey, brother-in-law of the
    Turkish Commander-in-Chief, Enver Pasha. The new vali, a subscriber to
    the view that a nascent Armenian "rebellion" was under way in Van, was
    unable to travel there until late March, when he arrived "accompanied
    by several thousand soldiers and Kurdish and Circassian irregulars".

    Cevdet quickly repeated an earlier demand that the Van Armenians
    supply 4,000 able-bodied men for work in labour battalions, but
    the Armenian leadership, fearful of the fate of such conscripts and
    concerned that full compliance would leave them defenceless, offered
    500 men and payment of the standard exemption fee for the rest.

    Cevdet's response was to have four Armenian leaders killed and a
    fifth--an Armenian community leader in the town of Shadakh--arrested,
    but when the townsfolk surrounded the building where the latter was
    detained, demanding his release, Cevdet responded by ordering one of
    his regiments to "go to Shadakh and wipe out its people". The troops
    however, for reasons unknown, attacked and perpetrated massacres in
    several defenceless Armenian villages instead.

    By this time, the alarmed Armenians were openly preparing for a defence
    of the city of Van. An attempt to avoid further bloodshed was made at
    this point by Yarrow himself and fellow American missionary Clarence
    Ussher, who met directly with Cevdet on the Armenians' behalf. At this
    meeting, Cevdet demanded that fifty Turkish soldiers be stationed in
    the American missionary compound in Van, but this was rejected by the
    Armenians on the grounds that it would compromise their defensive
    positions. On April 19, Cevdet issued the following order to his
    forces in the vilayet:

    The Armenians must be exterminated. If any Muslim protect a Christian,
    first, his house shall be burned; then the Christian killed before
    his eyes, and then his [the Moslem's] family and himself.

    An estimated 55,000 Armenians in the vilayet were subsequently
    slaughtered by Cevdet's troops; however, several localities were able
    to successfully resist the Turkish attacks, most notably the city of
    Van itself, which would hold out for almost a month.

    Siege of Van

    After the massacres ordered by Cevdet Bey on April 19 were largely
    concluded, the vali redeployed his troops for an attack on the city
    of Van itself. On the Turkish side were about 4,000 well-armed troops
    supported by artillery, while the city was defended by about 1,500
    Armenian militia, who according to Yarrow were obliged to resort
    to "all kinds of weapons including blunderbusses, Colt pistols,
    old-fashioned rifles and even ... a couple of small cannon [made]
    out of old metal". This poorly armed force would nonetheless prove
    sufficient to hold off the Turks for almost a month until the relief
    of the city by Russian forces.

    Yarrow and other members of the American mission were still located in
    the city when the siege began, and were thus able to provide eyewitness
    accounts. In an interview with an American newspaper a year later,
    Yarrow provided some details of the siege. Of the initial stages,
    he says:

    When the people in the city heard of the coming of the Turks they
    knew that no mercy would be shown them, for half the population
    were Armenians and Syrians [Assyrians] and they knew the Turks would
    massacre them. There was great commotion and nobody knew what to do.

    The people decided to make a stand against the Turks ... The battle
    started when the Turks fired upon and killed a group of women outside
    of the city. The besieged area was about one mile across and a
    veritable hail of bullets swept over the walls for 28 days that the
    city of Van was under fire.

    Yarrow himself assisted the Armenian defenders in maintaining
    governance during the siege. Yarrow's colleague, fellow missionary
    Clarence Ussher, notes that as the Armenians remaining in Van "had
    small experience in organization", it was "absolutely necessary" that
    someone with the right abilities attend to governance. Ussher states
    that Yarrow stepped into this role, taking the lead on many emergency
    committees and eventually "organiz[ing] a government with a mayor,
    judges, police, and board of health". Yarrow also helped organize a
    soup kitchen along with the manufacture and distribution of bread to
    those in need.

    Toward the end of the siege, Turkish forces bombarded the American
    missionary compound, a violation of diplomatic immunity that Ussher
    suggests was made because of Turkish suspicion that the Americans
    had aided the city's defence. Of the bombardment, Yarrow states:

    We had flying over the building where the missionaries were staying
    five American flags. One day the Turks turned their fire on the
    building and for two days they kept up an incessant firing of rifle
    bullets and shrapnel. Why they did this we do not know. The Turks
    knew, however, that we had helped the Armenians with their sick and
    had bettered sanitary conditions etc. We did nothing to assist them
    in a military way.

    On 14 May, after almost a month of siege, Turkish forces withdrew due
    to the advance of Russian forces, who relieved the city a few days
    later. It was then discovered, in the words of Yarrow, that "while
    the siege was going on the Turks [had] killed every Armenian that they
    could find in the vicinity of the city", including women and children.

    After making this discovery, some Armenians began killing some of
    the city's surviving Turks in revenge. Later however, after order
    had been restored, Yarrow expressed surprise "at the self-control of
    the Armenians, for though the Turks did not spare a single wounded
    Armenian, the Armenians are helping us to save the Turks - a thing
    that I do not believe even Europeans would do."

    With the lifting of the siege, the Armenians were to enjoy a brief
    ten-week period of self-governance, before advancing Turkish forces
    brought the city under threat once again. Thousands of Armenians fled
    the city rather than fall once more into Turkish hands, fleeing across
    the border to the relative safety of the Russian Caucasus, and Yarrow,
    by now sick with typhus, and the other American missionaries also
    decided to leave. Along the way, Yarrow describes how "in one locality
    the Turkish advance guard, secluded in the hills, poured rifle shots
    down upon the fleeing people. Hundreds of them were killed by the
    firing." Yarrow eventually made his way to Tiflis, and from there
    back to the United States where he would resume efforts to assist
    the Armenian people.

    Conclusion

    Speaking later of his experiences, Yarrow said "the Turks and Kurds
    have declared a holy war on the Armenians and have vowed to exterminate
    them." Of the overall genocide, he said: "It isn't war that the Turks
    carry on. It is nothing but butchering. The Turkish atrocities have not
    been exaggerated. From 500,000 to 1,000,000 Armenians and Syrians were
    slaughtered in a year." He described the massacres as an "organized,
    systematic attempt to wipe out the Armenians."

    Relief Work

    By 1916, some 300,000 refugees of the Armenian Genocide and other areas
    had settled in Russian Armenia under impoverished conditions. In a
    response to the crisis, in 1916, a relief committee was set up which
    aimed at assisting at least 250,000 Armenian refugees by providing
    food and shelter. Yarrow believed a stronger and independent Armenia
    would alleviate the refugee problems.

    After staying for two years in the United States, Yarrow began
    helping the refugees in Armenia and became a staff officer for
    Colonel Haskell's mission by 1919. Of the later stages of theCaucasus
    Campaign, Yarrow said "the Turkish advance terrifies the Armenians;
    and the Caucasian tartars who are unfriendly to the Armenians surround
    them. There is danger that the whole Armenian race will be exterminated
    should the combination of these forces be successful."

    Yarrow helping Armenian orphans

    In 1920, Yarrow took charge as the director of the Near East
    Foundation. At one point as director, he had responsibility for
    30,000 children who had sought refuge in the Caucasus. In Armenia,
    Yarrow started a street cleaning program and other irrigation projects
    which provided jobs to some 150,000 refugees; through the program,
    many of the refugees earned wages which helped them finance their
    daily activities independently. He later remarked that "in training
    30,000 children for future citizenship I feel that I have a real part
    in the development of the new Armenia."

    In 1924, Yarrow petitioned the United States State Department to
    restore Armenian territory that was lost to Turkey in 1920 and 1921.

    Awards

    Ernest A. Yarrow was awarded the Order of the Lion and the Sun by
    the Persian government for his relief efforts in the region. He also
    received four decorations from the Russian government and a medal
    from the Armenian government.

    http://www.horizonweekly.ca/news/details/62227



    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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